CHAPTER 67 Practical guidance on self-development of children in children's homes [1] Here is the gate already before us; so enter boldly! See, we are in the garden. See how cute and in the most beautiful order everything is set up! Small tree avenues intersect the large garden, and at each intersection we discover a small tree circle, which is decorated in the middle with a small temple. The paths are covered with the most beautiful lawn and thus provides way a very gentle path to walk on. Between the avenues we discover open spaces, on which a lot of the most beautiful flowers grow, perhaps like with a good early spring on the meadows of your earth. [2] You say here: how is it that these flowers are not arranged according to horticultural art, but are simply growing all mixed on the meadow? This is because this is already a perfect world, and thus is all growth in perfect correspondence with the mental conceptual abilities which the inhabitants of such a place possess. [3] Here, however, the (souls of the) youngest children live, who died on the earth soon after their birth. These little children cannot possibly have any definite concepts or perceptions of the Lord and His Word; therefore is everything here young, small and a colorful mix. [4] Look ahead. There in the middle of this large garden you will discover a building that has almost the shape of a large greenhouse. What is it? We want to go there, and we'll see what it is. [5] See, we are already there; let us enter through the open door before us, and we shall at once see what will be done in it. We are in it; see, an almost indefinitely long row of small little beds is arranged as if on a terrace about three feet above the floor. Keep looking! Behind the front row can be seen another row, as though separated by an alley, a second; then a third, fourth, fifth, etc. to tenth. And look, in each of these little beds, we see a child resting, and in every such alley, several hundred attendants and nurses are continually pacing up and down, carefully tending to the need of one or the other child. [6] How many such beds would be present in this room? We can easily calculate this; on a row there are ten thousand of such beds, and we have counted ten rows in this division, which would be a hundred thousand. But how many such departments are there in this building? There are ten of them; and so in the whole building a million of such beds will be available. The amount of children entering into this department increases from day to day according to your calculation; and the little ones who are now maturing in this department in these wonderful life-beds, will soon be taken to the next department. [7] When the children have, in this way, matured in all of the ten sections of this building, they are transferred to another building, where they are no longer allowed to rest in such beds, but special low rows of railings are erected for them where they learn to stand and walk. This building, too, has ten sections, in which walking is continually being trained. If the children have perfectly mastered their walking, there is again another building with ten sections; in this building, where the children is taught to speak with ingenious methods, making it well worth the effort to go to this school and have a closer look. [8] In this building, we do not have much to learn anyway; for it is self-evident that these little children, who were very untimely brought here from the world, are merely matured by the love of the Lord, and that the guardians therein are angelic spirits, who were fond of children on the earth. Knowing this, we are going to the third building. ​

[9] Behold, there more in the direction of the midday, is an already quite large, elongated form; so let us go there and get inside at once! We are already in one department, and indeed in the first; do you not notice how it is teeming with little students, and among them, friendly and patient teachers? And see how these little children are provided with the most varied and colorful sets of all kinds of toys. What do these serve for? It is firstly, for silent concept formation in the soul; which is here actually the essence. Here we hear nothing yet; but let's go to the second department. [10] Look, the children are no longer walking about so helter-skelter, but sit on low, long, soft, rows of banks. In front of every ten children we see a teacher holding the one object in his hand, naming it, and letting the children imitate him voluntarily, as well as possible. The objects are always chosen so that they attract the attention of the children. [11] Moreover, you will also note here that the long rows of banks are divided by ascending transverse walls between the groups of ten children. This is, therefore, the reason for the fact that, when an object is pointed out, the adjacent group of ten children's attention is not distracted by the exposition of an object. [12] In this section, the children learn to name the simple objects. In the next section they are already directed to the naming of composite concepts, where one concept is the basis and the other a determination. In the fourth section, they are learning to join the concepts by themselves, as well as the words which describes actions and activities, as well as words by which conditions, qualities, and characteristics are expressed. [13] In the fifth section, there is already formal conversation. This is done by the teachers, by means of displaying all sorts of objects on tables for visual instruction, as well as small theater performances, after which the children are instructed about what they have seen and what has happened. [14] In the sixth section, this branch of teaching is being continued in a somewhat larger and more meaningful way. The display tables are bigger, and theater themes are directed in order to relate to the Lord; only the children are not yet told of it except for the external image, and they must then retell the story in that same lesson period, as they have seen it. [15] In the seventh department, where the children can already speak quite formally, and their comprehension has attained a markedly higher degree, and already became significant, general historical representations referring to the Lord become the norm not only in the form of picture tablets, but are also in drama, and usually in such an appealing manner for the children that they are formally conceded and interrogated, and precisely because of this, are all the deeper impressed by all they have seen and heard. [16] In the eighth department, the teachers begin to let the children perform small pieces themselves, and then recount what was represented by such a lively picture. [17] In this way the children are guided in the most appropriate way to self-activity and to self-contemplation. [18] In the ninth department,the children must begin to invent new representations, naturally under the guidance of their wise teachers, and then present them, at first merely mute, but later, also with speech. [19] In the tenth department, we will see a lot of actors and playwrights, and their language will be so well-formed that you will have to say: Indeed, many a man cannot speak like that on the earth even when he has already gone through a university. It must be said, of course: [20] One learn in the spirit quicker than in the material body, which is not infrequently afflicted with great weaknesses and awkwardness. This is admittedly true. But if a similar method of teaching were also observed on the earth, the children living and growing there would also reach the goal of their spiritual development immeasurably quicker than when the child is first bombarded with all sorts of rubbish, which have to first be laboriously removed later, before the child would be receptive for anything pure. [21] To give you a picture for clearer understanding, I will only draw your attention to what you have already often experienced. If you have a musically talented child, what would be the right thing to do for early, true and proper instruction? If, instead of a formal teacher, such a child is given the most impotent bungler, who, by his very nature, understands everything else better than that what he teaches, and also gives the student a bad instrument which produces little or no sound, is regularly disrupted and all this under the pretext: This is good enough for a beginning! Will such a talented musical student ever get to anything? We shall see. [22] After three wasted years, we finally give our student a slightly better master. The latter, however, needs at least three years to train all the taught nonsense out of his student. Now six years have passed, and our student cannot do anything yet. One wants to make the first mistake good too, in order to make something of the child, give him an excellent master. This master, however, has no patience, and the student no longer experiences great joy. Another three years go by, and our talented student had hardly brought himself to a very mediocre amateur, while in the first three years, he would have been able to do something significant with a fair, basic course. [23] See, so it goes with all the teachings on the earth, therefore are the progress of the education so slow. Here, however, everything is arranged in the most appropriate manner, and therefore all education proceeds with giant steps. The continuation will show us more brilliant results. CHAPTER 68 Visual instruction in graduated departments in the children's kingdom [1] You have seen now how the immature children learn to speak; But what follows after speaking? See, there is another building before us. In this we shall enter, and it will immediately show what is happening with these children. We are already in the building, which is beautifully built, and we no longer see the former departments, but the whole building presents a very large hall, which has space enough to convince you with inner vision of a million such disciples, and a teacher for every group of ten. [2] But what happens here? Behold, there is such a group in front of us, you see in the middle a round table, around which ten little students are comfortably seated together with a teacher. What do the students have before them on the table? We see books with somewhat stiff pages, and on the pages are small, but very masterful pictures. [3] What do the students do with these pictures? They look at them, and then relate to their teacher about the picture they looked at. This is the beginning of reading; only elaborated pictures are being read here. [4] Look a lot of tables in the foreground, which run in a straight line across the width of the hall; there, as you can see, are all the beginners of reading. You are saying here, of course, and asks, "This is all right, correct, and beautiful, if it is merely about reading of pure picture-writing; but even if the reading by means of mute signs or so-called letters is common here, we still do not quite see how these silent, single signs will emerge from these cute pictures. [5] Let it be well, my dear brothers and friends! What you have here before you, will be clear at the next row of tables; and you will be able to convince yourself that you can learn to read in an entirely natural way, without the preceding spelling and syllable forming. [6] See, there is the second row; what do you see here? You say: nothing but fundamentally the same books, but the pictures are no longer fully elaborated, but only given with the outlined contours. See, there is more thought to this, in order to find out from the connection of the lines the formerly well-elaborated picture again. At the same time, however, you will see from this that the inner spirit is thereby directed to activity, because of the omission of some of the external vision of the image, or the inner mind is guided to perform the filling in of the lacking parts itself. We now have seen what the students do in this second row. [7] Let us go to the third; we are here. What do you see here? You say: again books as before; but here we see only basic lines around which the other contour lines are expressed only by dots. Look, here it is harder to figure out the actual picture; but it is evident that one has already been led back to the actual basic meaning, to some extent to the foundation of the image. At the same time, the meaning of the images is read more thoroughly, and the lines begin to gain more significance in themselves. [8] It is also explained at the same time what is a straight, a curved, and a circular line. [9] Let's go to the fourth row; what do you see? Again books, where only the basic lines are still present; but they are more encompassed with the contour points. Since, however, the existing images represent a lot of historical situations which are usually related to the Lord, and thus one or more human figures occur in each picture, these basic lines clearly show all the parts and outlines of humans; how the parts of the human being are ordered, and what significance the simple lines have in relation to the different parts and outlines of man. [10] But what is the outcome of this? We will see this in the next row. [11] See, we are already here. Here we see the same lines closer together, and here and there the end-parts of the lines run to certain points. What does that say? It is still the first picture; but the lines are already transforming into a mute form, and the students have to recognize these mute characters as if they had the complete picture in front of them. [12] Let us go back to the next row. Here in the books you see only one, two, or three principal lines, and on a much smaller scale. These individual principal lines are here and there connected with small globules to indicate that they belong together. The secondary lines are only suggested here and there with a few short dashes and dots. [13] See, is not that a formal font? Yes, it sure is; and it is the very real right (or original) script which corresponds with the whole essence of man. You say: That's right; but how does it look with the individual sounds or the so-called A. B. C.? I tell you, that is all in it; for the so-called self-clauses are indicated by the dots and small squares, but the consonants are represented by the principal lines and their connections. You therefore never read the individual letters here and do not get to know them in advance because of the reading, but this way has it exactly reversed. You will first learn the general signs, as you have seen, and from these general signs you will then learn to recognize the individual basic signs, and then to compile them together, and to recapture the general signs from the compound ones. [14] See, this is the way to teach the students reading in the shortest and most appropriate way. [15] It is barely worth mentioning that learning to speak, is a very important part of the learning to read, since it can be very easily understood. For the difference between these methods consists merely in the fact that the teaching of speech are plastic and dramatic, but with learning to read, it is drawn flat and presented on a small scale. [16] But here we see several rows; what is happening there? Reading instruction still continues here; and this consists in the principle that the students should find by means of correspondences, from the form of this inner spiritual writing, in the end also all the secular, external writings; and they leave this building with nothing else but the ability to read. It is scarcely worth mentioning that students are learning to write of their own accord; for according to this method, as you will say, two flies are slain with one stroke. [17] You of course ask here: "Yes, if these little children, who are perhaps five to seven years old, according to earthly measures learn all these things, what else remain to teach them? For, as we have seen, they have, in the speech lessons, by means of the countless varied picture-books, already learned almost everything which man can conceive in his spirit, and they have been taught much more through the reading lessons, for in their pictures there were so many and varied situations, that one could fill a whole infinity with their realisation. It is certainly not easy to see what a higher school can offer here. [18] Let it be for now; the sequel will show you what they have to learn. You must not think that in the realm of the spirits as a spirit itself, as you say, you get to eat all the wisdom of the heavens with the spoon, and you only have to swallow. For that would indeed be an extraordinary monotonous life, if one would be in a position, in which man would no longer be capable of perfection. But if the Lord Himself, which you would not quite understand, continue in the development of His infinite power, which you can easily see from the progress and propagation of all things, how could there ever be a standstill for His children? But how such advances occur, the sequel will show. CHAPTER 69 Heavenly schoolhouse for geography and world history in the kingdom of children [1] Look, here is already another and by far larger house; what is taught here? We'll be right there. You know that these little children had never been able to know their place of birth, the earth, for the reason that they died too soon after their birth. But since the Lord's knowledge is necessary to know the place which He has chosen to be the chief place of His mercy, these little children also have to get to know this place more closely, to see when and where the Lord has become a man to redeem the entire human race and establish the earth as a teaching-house for His children. Therefore is the geography of the earth in fact taught here, and this certainly in a much more effective way than is the case with you. [2] The method by which the geography of the earth will be presented here, we shall at once convince ourselves of. In the middle of the great hall where we are now, on a large, beautiful shelf, rest an earth globe is almost in the way that you have on earth. You must not merely accept this, but be of steadfast conviction that nothing exists on the earth which have not first existed in the spirit for a long time. Such an earth globe on the earth is therefore by no means an invention, which have not existed for a long time, yes even for an eternity, in the pure domain of the spirit. [3] You can also see this very well, if you ask yourself: What was first: the earth, or a globe made by man, which represents the present form of the earth only in a very deficient and poor manner? [4] I believe, however, that since the earth has certainly existed for a long time in the spirit of the Lord, it would be a good reason for the existence of this image of the earth. Therefore can this globe, spiritually seen, be quite in order here, and in the fullness of truth it is also considerably better ordered than it can ever be in you on earth. [5] Go closer and look at it. Its surface have not been painted, as is the case with you on earth, but it is a sculptured plastic radiation-type, like your so-called images of light, which likewise project even the most inconspicuous object on the smallest scale. The great difference, however, between the external terrestrial radiation type and this inner spiritual, is incalculable; for, in the most precise observation, not one atom must be omitted, and the whole nature of the earth must be exactly represented. [6] But that this is accomplished here, you can see at first sight in close proximity here; for the brooklets, rivers, streams, and seas are quite natural; the brooks, rivers and streams flow, and the sea receives them. [7] Look on! The mountains of the earth, which are completely faithfully represented on small scale, are evidently from the same substances. The glaciers have their snow and ice, the limestone mountains their lime, the lower alps their pastures, and deeper down, their forests. and just look closely, every city and every village is precisely displayed. [8] For example, your city. Look at it, and you will find that nothing is omitted. But also see how clouds and fog even move in the same directions and in the same forms as they are at the same time always on the real earth. See, this is certainly the most perfect globe. It is of course quite large; its diameter, according to your scale, maybe about twenty klafter. [9] But how can he be seen from all sides? Very easy; for see, if firstly hangs from or rests on the large frames by means of a powerful (horizontal) spindle parallel to a circular gallery which reaches precisely the height of the poles. Our students are on this gallery, among them their teachers, and they thoroughly examine an entire meridian. Have they investigated this well, the globe is advanced by one meridian, and so on, until the whole earth has been studied. [10] But is this the only globe, and have the students finished their geographic studies in this studio? Oh no! Look, there is yet another great hall before us in which is a similar globe, representing the earth a thousand years earlier, and again another imposing great hall, representing the earth again a thousand years earlier, and so it goes on, back to Adam. [11] The students learn in this way also the history of the world together with their geography; only, they always go the opposite way. They begin with the present, and thus go from the phenomena to the cause; which is just as much to say as going from outside to inside. [12] You ask here, and say, "On the earth, indeed, changes happen from year to year; how can these be learned by the great globes, which are only depicting every thousand years? Then I say nothing else but look around a little, and look at what is contained in such a great hall. Look, in a certain distance there are ten more, somewhat smaller globes in each room. These represent the earth at every hundred years, and indeed, just as vividly as can be seen in the big one. Behind these ten globes, you will again discover a great multitude more in a good order, showing the earth from year to year, and behind it the last and widest row, you find very small globes of hardly three feet in diameter, presenting the changes on the earth from day to day. [13] In the first hall you may notice that a new globe is added in this last row, according to your calculation, every day; that is in the hall, which represents your present millennium. But in order for the students to not have to deal so much with the small globes, the teachers on the great globe are already prefiguring all the changes which have taken place here and there on the earth. As a result, the students already experience everything and can then convince themselves by their own affirmation on the small globes. [14] At the end of the last hall, where the earth is depicted at the time of Adam, there is also an opening through which our disciples can see the real earth as if through a tube, in order to gain the complete conviction of all that they have been taught about the earth in these halls. [15] How long does such a course take according to your reckoning of time? Maximum of six to seven days; for you have to take into account the far greater and more unchallenged, purely spiritual comprehensive ability of such an awakened child, who can absorb in one minute more than he would in one year on the earth. On the contrary, it is true that in the realm of spirits, which are imperfect, there are situations in which a spirit progresses less in a hundred years, than a man would in a minute on the earth. [16] So are there also, on your respective earth, and especially on the Moon, educational institutions for spirits, in which they make very poor progress. But those do not belong here, since these spirits here find themselves in perfection and purity. [17] But what do the children learn after these courses? See, in front of us, further towards noon, there is already an enormously large building. What will be taught in this? I tell you: nothing else than what is naturally the foundation of the external earth system; that is, the natural geology and the origin of the earth. If all this is understood first and foremost, it is then transcended into the historical and from this, to the spiritual earth. But as all these things will be presented, you will convince yourself of this just as you have convinced yourself of all things so far. CHAPTER 70 Instruction on the nature and origin of the earth in the kingdom of children [1] The new building stands in front of us and we enter. What do you see in this great hall? Obviously, you see nothing else but a raised globe, which does not differ from the previous one. But how should geology be studied on this globe? Let's go a little closer, and take a closer look. [2] Look, in the first place is this globe divided into two parts in the middle, from pole to pole. You only have to press on it and the whole inner shape of the earth becomes visible from pole to pole. The structure and the build represents the real earth exactly; even the mineral, as you can see it here, is perfectly the same. When you look at the now divided sphere, you will see how the earth still contains in itself a smaller earth, but which nevertheless is connected with the external earth by solid organic bonds. [3] In this smaller earth you see more towards the North Pole, a somewhat elongated sphere, split in two; it is full of veins and canals in its interior. Just below the equator you can see a large, hollow space, which here seems to be webbed all through with a fire-like mass. From this fire-mass you see the fire rising to the outside of the earth through numerous organs, and from this inner fire-cavity, you also see, especially at the South Pole, several large spiraling tubes, through which a great number of burning vapors are seen. These burning vapors are produced by the water which continuously flow from the surface of the earth into this furnace, while their powerful outflow towards the South Pole, bring about the daily rotation of the earth. [4] It is not time for you now to dissect the whole earthly being, but merely to show the way in which our more advanced spiritual students learn to know the inner nature of the earth. I think it is scarcely necessary to mention anymore, since every one of you can at first glance see that the geology or construction of the entire earth system cannot be taught in a wiser and more sensible way, and be better recognized by the students, than in this way. [5] At the same time, here, in addition to material geology, we also point to the fact that all the substances and the organs formed from them are fundamentally nothing but intellectually corresponding forms in which a captured spiritual life is prepared for its liberation. It is also shown how the captured life, rising from the center of the earth, ascends through countless steps, and, on the surface of the earth, manifests itself again in numerous new forms. - See, all this, the students learn in this room. [6] You ask, of course whether with so many spiritual pupils, such a globe will be too small? Just look around a little in this hall, and you will be able to look at a great number of similar apparatuses, some of the same size and some of smaller dimensions. And all these globes are arranged in such a way that they can be divided into all possible parts. Now that we have also seen this, we can again move to another hall. [7] We are in the second adjoining hall. Look, this one has the form of an exceedingly broad and high rotunda, which is divided all around in about a thousand considerably large and rather deep pillar niches, or in a certain way, chapels. Here, in the middle of this rotunda, is nothing but a floating, white-light gray cloud above a large table. [8] What does this mean? Look in all directions at the round windows of the chapels, from whence light is directed straight to this table. [9] The collision of the rays produces the apparent cloud. But what should the students learn from it? Nothing but the orderly formation of a world. But how a world arises from such conflict of rays, according to the will of the Lord, can be seen in these thousand encompassing chapels. [10] In the first chapel, we see on a somewhat smaller scale the same phenomenon we have seen in the middle of the hall. In the next chapel the formerly disorderly cloud formation has already formed an elongated round shape, which, however, is still rather wavering. [11] In every successive chapel, the form becomes more and more permanent, and more certain, also more solid. So we go through a hundred chapels. After the hundredth, we can see a crystal-clear water drop hovering through the slightly transparent mistball. And when we have walked through a few hundred chapels, we will see the water ball in each one, until he finally gets to the size of the former fogball. [12] From this time on we see small transparent crystals in the middle of the water-ball, not unlike those smooth, frozen snowflakes, which often fly like small diamond-shaped plates in considerable cold. [13] In the following chapels we always see more crystals of this kind, about which the center turns into a sort of bluish network, and in this way connects the previously disconnected crystals. [14] In the progression of these chapels, we keep seeing a gray and opaque clump in the center of the water-ball, around which, as in the cold winter, new clear crystals are being formed again, and glimmer like diamonds inside the water-ball. [15] As we proceed, we again see these newly formed crystals being bound by a new bluish tissue, and from the ever-darkening lump we also see a lot of round air-bubbles rising up on all sides, already causing a kind of atmospheric air to develop around the water-ball. You can see that this process, as we continue, becomes increasingly greater and more predominant. [16] When we have again passed a few hundred chapels in this slow development, we find here a strongly foaming lump in the center of a fairly large water-ball. Great bubbles oozes from it, and are here a carrier of a kind of hazy substance, which spread all over the surface of the water as a light fog, when the ascending bubbles burst. And see, these actions become increasingly violent from chapel to chapel. At the hundredth chapel, we can already perceive here and there inside the already highly crystallized water globe, some glowing spots, from where continually ascends vapors as if in boiling water, in countless bubbles of various sizes. [17] Further on, we are already discovering significant crystal tips above the surface of the water and the waterball is here and there free from the vapors floating above it. [18] Still further ahead, we already see significant fiery rays from the interior, tearing the surface of the water, churning it violently. Newly formed little crystals are washed into the inner crevices of the earth through this churning, thus rendering the surface of the inner opaque ball increasingly more round and even, as the surface of the water becomes more evenly round in itself as well. [19] Continuing further from chapel to chapel, we encounter flashes, produced on a small scale in the vapors, which cover so much of the actual ball, that we can only see them with difficulty. [20] Toward the end of this world formation education, we see quite mighty fiery eruptions which elevates the innermost firmest foundation over the surface of the water, thereby forming mountains and other solid dry land. During this progression we discover here and there the bare, solid rock already covered with moss, and in the deeper regions a softer soil, which has formed by the mossy growth of the rock and by the disintegration thereof through the fire. [21] In the continuous progression, we already discover animated infusoria, and the formation of the vegetative soil proceeds more rapidly. In the next chapel, we discover a kind of worm in the water. The animal formation in the water becomes increasingly more potent and rich; and thus, by such progress from chapel to chapel, the earth finally reaches the state where man's creation begins. But this is not to be seen here, but in a next room. [22] But what measures of time would these chapels represent? I tell you: Although these periods are not of exactly the same length, you can still measure millions of years from chapel to chapel, and you will not be too wrong. For, when you consider the greatness of the earth, you will also be able to comprehend what multiplication of time would be required to obtain a dew-drop from utterly void light-eater, and the latter, after all, The size of the earth, and to finally see it solidified. I hardly need to say more. [23] It is self-evident that this way of intuitive instruction way by which the students learn about the formation of a world, is the most practical. We can now proceed to the next room, where the creation of man is presented, and thus also the beginning of the historical and spiritual earth. CHAPTER 71 About the school of life in the kingdom of the children [1] It is, of course, not the place where we should present the whole history of man's creation, neither all history from point to point up to the present, but we only look here at the way in which all our little spiritual students are taught. [2] You may well accept it in advance as sufficient, that here, in the realm of the perfect spirits, everything is done in a proportionately wiser and smarter manner than on the earth, in order to accomplish any good purpose. This is done for the very simple reason, one here does not begin with counting from one into the infinitum, but one begins here with the infinite, and counts back from there to one, or likewise does one not go here from the inside to the outside, but from outside to inside; which, indeed, would be the best way also on Earth, if men were not so foolish and stupid. [3] But since the people of the earth strive only for the most trivial and vainest things, they believe and trust the Lord only for so long (well, at the best measure of men), as long as they do not bodily lack anything. But if a small temptation comes, they soon fall back into their old doubts, and throw themselves into the arms of a useless and very badly helping world, instead of the Lord. Such are even the best people already constituted; proving thus that their inclination have not turned inward, but only outward. [4] But where the faith, trust, and love of the Lord are so exceedingly and impotently meagre, there can be no expectation of a similar spiritual formation, by which man would make greater progress in one minute, than in the ordinary, most miserable secular does in twenty years, and sometimes even in a hundred, if human life would last so long. [5] It is true that the Lord have instructed all men to accept no education other than this, but they leave the sacred school of life to stand idle, do not at all know what they are to do with it, and prefer to busy themselves all their lives with the insignificant knowledge of dead nature and its conditions. And when they ask themselves at the end of their lives, what important and great things have we achieved by our laborious study? Their own feelings will give them the answer: We have made it so far that in the most important moments of our lives, we do not even really know whether we are men or women; and do not know whether we have yet to expect another life or not. [6] Are heaven, hell, and spirit world fairy tales then invented by work-shy monastic rulerships; or is there something about it? If there is nothing behind it, what then, and what will happen to us? But if is there something to it, where do we fit in, from above, or below? [7] See, these are the sure fruits of secular external learning. It will, of course, be said that if the fruits of the scholarship are thus, what will be the fruits of those in the countryside and in the cities, which grow up with an education not much higher than the cattle in the pasture and the beasts in the woods? Here I tell you nothing but what the Lord Himself has said: [8] He that is not reborn in his spirit, shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven, nor have eternal life. [9] For whosoever wish to obtain the rebirth of the Spirit, however, the observation of that sacred school of life is necessary in all its parts, which the great holy Master of all life has preached to the people of the earth from His own holy mouth, and has sealed them with His own blood. [10] Whoever does not want to actively attend this school, as it is explained, have only himself to blame if he thereby forfeits the life of his spirit. [11] But it is definitely certain that everyone who owns something, no matter how simple, must very well know that he is in the first place the owner of this item, and secondly, what item it is, as well as its value. [12] If any man would want to dispute his possessions, he will surely have put himself up for a rough trial; why then? Because he certainly knows that he is an owner, and knows what he possesses. [13] But if someone is the owner of the eternal life in the Spirit, can he ask whether his soul and spirit will pass away with the life of the body or not? He who ask after the how, when and what, whereto and from where?, he is certainly not an owner of eternal life, but is nothing but a fine wage-laborer in the world, and is afraid of losing the life of his body; why then? Because he knows no other. [14] But those who are there, and were formerly true disciples of the Lord's school of eternal life, despises the death of the body, and simply await with great joy and delight for the complete deliverance from the heavy external life-chains of this world. They testified to the truth of the school of life of the Lord - as martyrs with their blood. [15] Seek in the present time the martyrs! There are, indeed, now and then truly brave defenders of the sacred school of life from Christ the Lord, but these defenders resemble the chickens in the trees, which make fun of the fox that dances underneath them, because their instinct tells them that their enemy cannot get to their skin. But if the chickens are on the ground, and the fox comes among them, it is done with the laughter over the enemy, and the death angst compels our brave, feathered heroes to the most rapid flight. [16] Such is now also the case with faith. As long as a man feels himself safe from the claws of the any corner of the earth, before the claws of the dominating and greedy great ones of the world, so long he will speak like a Moses on Sinai. But if these great and mighty friends of the world, and enemies of the truth have tracked our Moses, and are ready to receive him in a worldly, most unpleasant manner, our truth-teller will look to see if there is any door open for escape. Should this be barred, then, on strict worldly examination, the strongly threatened prophet will take the so-called courageous measure which your astronomer Copernicus took, when he saw the stake before him, or, as some of the truly pious men of Spain have done at the perilous times of the Inquisition, since they would rather burn some of the doctrines taught by the Lord Himself than to bring about a great inconvenience over themselves. [17] These are still in and for themselves praiseworthy people however, because in themselves they are nevertheless convinced of the truth, they only outwardly do not have the courage to confess the same. [18] But the Lord has certainly said, "Whoever confesses me before the world, even I will confess before my Father." Or to put it another way, whoever has truly took Me into his spirit, will also confess Me in the fullness of the power of truth in him before all the world; Therefore I will also recognize him in the fullness of My love as Father. [19] But if it is expressed as such, then nothing else will appear from it, than firstly, as it is in the Lord's words: "Many are called, but few chosen," or, as it is made clear: many will receive eternal life in the beyond, but only a very few will be lucky enough to be taken in as children, into the true Father's house. For the attainment of this grace requires violence; and who would not take it by force, they will not get it. [20] But on the other hand, it is also said, "My yoke is gentle, and my burden is easy." This passage may be consolation for those who have the truth convincingly in themselves, but still have so much of the world, that it deprives them of the courage to openly acknowledge the truth before the world. They really have a gentle yoke and a light burden on the truth of eternal life which is present in them. But the few who have banished everything of the world, attain the spirit of power and strength, fear the world no more, and openly acknowledge the ever-living truth in them, and pull with the violence of their faith and their love for the Lord the Father's house to them. [21] But you may also see from this that if any father of a family had his estate in the country, he would have several well-serving servants, together with his children. But when thieves and robbers break into the house, the servants will hide themselves out of fear and angst; but the adult sons will, with all their might, seize the impious robbers and thieves, and protect the life of the father and the mother with their might and their strength. [22] Are the servants bad because they have crawled? No, they are not; but they are weak, little animated, and therefore discouraged beings. But the children have the life of the Father in their foundation; therefore nothing is so holy to them than that. But should they, the servants, be rewarded for cringing? I mean, you do not need to be a lawyer to see that in this case you would not pay any wages for fearful cries. [23] But this also stands in the words of life: "He that soweth much shall also reap much, and he that soweth little shall reap little. [24] I believe that from the description so far, it will not be so difficult to recognize that men have in their present world schools not made much of eternal life; and the exceedingly meager sowing will also result in an exceedingly meager harvest. [25] Therefore, according to the will of the Lord, I also show you the living children's schools in the sun, so that you should learn from it how the school of life should be handled on earth. We are now standing in the hall, where we shall soon learn about the history of man's creation, and his further history on the earth, and their spiritual condition of it. CHAPTER 72 Classroom of the creational history of men in the kingdom of children [1] See, in the middle of this very large hall center is a huge globe around which a gallery is attached. And since this hall is also a large rotunda, and the circular wall is provided with many great chapels, we see in these chapels also a great number of smaller globes, which serve their pre-determined purpose. [2] Let us go to the gallery and see the large installed globe; there we shall look at the history of man's creation. - We're on the gallery; so pay attention to how a teacher present here, will explain these things to his students. [3] Look, he bends over the big ball and touches it. And see, at the place where he had touched it, soon a strong light shines, the light becomes concentrated, renders itself into a form, and the form is like a man. Keep looking: the teacher touches the ball again, and a fine dust rises from the touched spot, envelopes the former light, and the light does not give off any more light, and is already covered in the same form with an earthly shell. [4] And now the teacher bends over and breathes the still unmoving form and it comes to life, moves itself and looks at the things him. And look again: the form becomes tired of the viewing, falls down and goes into a sleep state. [5] But now the teacher bows down again and stirs the sleeping form by the side, and you see again a light rising from the side of this form, the light occupies a second human form and stands immovably before the still sleeping first form. But the teacher again touches the first form, and a little wet cloud-like mass, like a hanging drop, dislodge from the first form, dissolves into a small mist, and envelopes the second form of light as such. The light disappears, and the second form is similar to the first, but not yet animated; therefore, the teacher touches her again - and see, she lives and moves happily back and forth. [6] But now the teacher also touches the first figure again; see, he rises, and when he sees the second one, which is similar to him, he has a great joy in it, and is already speaking with some expressive language to her. The teacher here represents the Lord, and is now demonstratively and very realistically doing what the Lord has done, with the power given to him by the Lord. He also speaks the same words as the Lord has spoken, and the students also note the great power of such words. [7] But now look how the teacher reveals himself to this first created human couple and how he teaches this human couple. [8] Look, the teacher is touching his chest. Immediately a bright ray emerges from the touched spot towards the newly created human pair, and stands before the same as a third light-man. And what the teacher now speaks to the students according to the words of the Lord, which is familiar to you, he also speaks as the third man presented by the beam from the teacher's breast, to the first created human couple. [9] It is no longer necessary to let you see the representation of the further progression, for everything you know from the old and the new words literally takes place, but the moments of procreation are concealed. For there still will be another certain spiritual time, when our students will be more mature in their beings, when they will be educated in a highly edifying way about this. [10] I remind you, however, that the teachers, in the same way, present to their students all the further guidance of the human race in the most appropriate manner, and finally end up populating the whole earth's surface, and let these peoples act independently upon the surface of the earth. These build huts and cities, restrain animals for their use, wage war and pursue each other exactly as it was on earth. And see, all this happens up to the present time. [11] The special moments in the great history of the world, as the creation of man, then the flood of Noah, then the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then the great leadership of the Israelite people under Moses and his successor, then the story under David and Solomon, then the birth of the Lord, and from then on the most important moments of the propagation of the doctrine, form the principal sections of this teaching. [12] If one such a main section is completed, the students are led to the small globes standing in the chapels, and they have to repeat to their teachers in a self-creative way what the teachers have shown them on the great globe. In this way, the whole of the teaching itself becomes alive, and the pupils then know the events of the earth from point to point just as vividly as if they had been witnesses on the real earth themselves. [13] When the students have learned this important subject, then they are led again to the great globe, and the teachers then show them the spiritual earth and how it is formed from the human race. [14] They show them the spheres, and how they are always forming themselves increasingly purer and brighter over the actual material earth, and how these spheres becomes a landscape as soon as the spirit of a deceased person ascends into some sphere, and takes possession from it, of what is congenial to him. [15] At the same time the teachers show the students the subterranean ever-darkening spheres, and how the souls of evil deceased men sink into such dark spheres. Wherever they take some agreeable possession, there are also several who are compelled to press themselves, and thereby, in anger, to kindle themselves, and when they have kindled themselves, the students look on as such sinister souls transform in the most diverse ways into the most horrible forms, and sink into the ever deeper and darker spheres. [16] On this occasion, the students are also told what sin is and how a free being can commit sin on the earth. [17] If the students have understood all this, they are led out of this hall and directed to another larger garden, where all the higher educational establishments are situated. It is self-evident that the students in this first garden naturally do not learn uninterruptedly without having well-arranged play hours between the sessions; for the spirit also needs organized resting periods for its strengthening, as the Lord have appointed a seventh day of rest day after the known six works of creation. [18] And in the time of Christ, the Lord Himself showed that He have rested after some work like any other man. The spirits here must likewise have periods of rest, in which they strengthen themselves for more teaching; and so, especially at the time of the transfer from one school to the other, a considerable period of rest ensues. During these are the students allowed to, if they so wish, to pay a visit together with their teachers, their relatives on the real earth-body, which, however, usually only happens when their related inhabitants of the earth are in deep sleep, and in the waking state, only very rarely know anything about it; especially if they are more earthly than spiritually minded. [19] Some such students, since they know much about the Lord, have a desire to see the Lord. Such desire, however, is seldom fulfilled, and that is because, as spirits, they are still too weak to resist the everlasting, omnipotent spirit of God, and to endure such closeness. Their most favorite recreational activity, however, is to be allowed to visit Mary, as their general spiritual supervisor and mother. Mary often visits all these great institutions; but not always visible to the little spirits, but certainly to the teachers. [20] You ask whether all deceased children must go through these schools from birth until their twelfth year? Certainly, but not in one and the same garden; because there is a separate starting garden for every age. But as for the second garden, they all come together. How and what the innumerable many children's spirits learn there, and on what conditions they pass over, will next time be shown to you. CHAPTER 73 The first commandment in the first classroom - explanation [1] We do not need a long and wide voyage from here, for the next garden is before our very eyes. Look, at a moderate distance we are already greeted with endlessly stretched rows of trees, behind which we see an exceedingly large and equally splendid palace. This is already the garden in which we have to be, in which you will even meet those children whom the Lord has taken from you on the earth. [2] But if you would recognize them at once, is certainly another question; for in the spirit, the children no longer resembles the physical traits of their earthly parents, but they only resemble the Lord to the extent of their receptive capacity for the loving-goodness and faithfulness from the Lord. Nevertheless, on certain occasions, they can also accept the earthly similarities which are bound in their souls, and thus make themselves known in form to those who have come here from the earth, and are not yet too much acquainted with the spiritual conditions. [3] We shall not, however, spend any more time speaking about this, but rather to go straight into the garden, to convince ourselves of all that with our own spiritual eyes, which we would otherwise have to attain with the mouth here. [4] We are already in the tree-rows or avenues, in which you have discovered the most beautiful flowery lanes, and also here and there children, walking gaily on it. Let us go in deeper, and we shall find ourselves, as soon as we are there, at the palace we have first seen. [5] See, it is already standing in front of us, with a nearly indefinitely stretched length. Thousands times thousand windows are set in rows. Every one measures seven klafter high. Above the height of the windows, we find a smaller row of windows, which are placed exactly above each of the lower large windows. [6] You say and ask, "But for the sake of the Lord, is this whole building, this immensely long palace, but a single hall? I say unto you, It is not, but is divided into twelve divisions. At the height where you see the second row of small windows, a splendid and wide gallery runs along the whole hall, from which gallery one can, without disturbing the students on the floor at all, overlook the twelve sections one by one, and convince oneself of what is in them. Now let us go in, that everything may be clear to you. [7] Look, here we are at the entrance. But we do not need to go up to the gallery because we are to remain largely invisible to these little children. Only the teachers will be aware of us; but these are already told why we are here. [8] Well, here we are already in the first room. What do you see in the middle of this great hall written on a white tablet placed on a column standing upright? you say: At the very top, the number 1, which is known to us, and which will surely be the number of the hall, and below: the path to the freedom of the spirit! That is, I tell you, not the number of the hall, but the first law of God by Moses. [9] You ask, "What are the many children, whom are already looking quite mature, to do with the earthly law of Moses, which is considered to be for mortal, disbelieving people, but certainly not for children, who as pure spirits have long been convinced of the existence of the one God; since, as we have seen, this is shown to them at the very beginning of the first elementary lecture, as a vivid illustration, at every possible opportunity? [10] My dear friends and brothers, the matter is quite different from what you think. But you also find something similar on the earth, where you can ask the children wherever you want, and you will find everywhere with them a truly living faith in a God. For none is more believing than a child, and yet there is surely no such mean parental couple to be found who would deny their children, at least in the beginning of their lives, to acknowledge a God, since every religion prescribes it, and the parents have to, at least from the moral point of view, allow their children to learn about and recognise it. [11] Would not it also be believed that such children, taught by God, do not need any further instruction about God by this time? You must confess, and say: yes, every human do require such teaching till the end of his life; for it is only too easy for the first impressions of childhood to become blurred, and then are these people who have outgrown their children's shoes, as if they had never heard of God. I tell you: such a blurring is, of course, not easily possible here; but you must understand that these children, because of their early arrival, had no opportunity on earth to react on the freedom of their spirit, which is the actual motive for life. Therefore, this most important action for the life of the spirit, must be put into the fullest action here. So far, these children's spirits have been, to a certain extent, spiritual living machines. Here, however, they are concerned with becoming alive out of themselves, and therefore they must also learn all the commandments, and then test them in their own right, and learn how they themselves are living spiritual beings under a given law. [12] And so here is the first commandment given, which is, "Thou shalt believe in one God, and never think that there is either no God, nor that there are two, three, or several gods." [13] Here, of course, we ask ourselves again: how can one command a believing of a God who believes in God anyway, and has no doubt about it? This is indeed a good remark; but the children are here subjected to all sorts of doctrines and customs by their teachers, in which they are afflicted by all sorts of doubts about the existence of God; this mode of instruction is called the desolation of one's own spirit. [14] But in order to do this with these children, the teachers not infrequently make the most remarkable things happen as if coincidental before the students' eyes, let them have a look at it, and then ask them whether God was needed for this, since they have not seen Him acting. If the children say that God can do this only through His will, without necessarily have to be present, then the teachers let their students themselves think of different things, and whatever is thought by the children, would appear immediately before them. Then the teachers would again ask the children: who has done this? [15] Thereby several are brought into the twilight. Some say that they themselves have done this, others think that the teachers have done it according to the recognition of the thoughts in the students. But some say that they have thought of such things, but the one omnipotent God must have admitted it, so that the thought appeared as a finished work before them. [16] If the students still remain faithful to the one God, then the teachers would ask them how then do they know that there is a God? The students then usually reply to them: The first wise teachers have taught us this. Now, however, these teachers probe further, saying, What then would you say, if we, as equally wise teachers would say and teach that there is no God, and that all that you see is made and built by us? And what will you say when we say of ourselves that we are the actual true gods? [17] Behold, here the children really hesitates, and then ask the teachers what they should do in this case? [18] But these teachers say to them, "Seek in you what you must do; if there is a God, then you must find him in you, and if there be none, you will never find any. [19] When the children ask how they should make such a search in themselves, the teachers say, "Try to love the God which you believe that he exists, in your hearts, as if He really exists. Let this love grow, and if there is a God, He will answer you in your love, but if there is none, you will not receive an answer in your hearts. [20] See, here the pupils begin to go into their inner being and begin to love the God whom they only previously believed in, in a childlike fashion. But then it happens that God, the Lord does not report as soon as expected, and our children are in no small doubt. But how they are brought to conquer this doubt, from these, the persecution will show. CHAPTER 74 How should one seek God? [1] There are already some who have just turned to their teachers, and have made the remark that they are now compelled to believe that there is no God besides the teachers who perform miracles before them, while this God, whom they have took hold of with their love in their hearts, have not shown up among them in any perceptible way. [2] But what do teachers do in reaction to their students' statements? Listen to how a teacher, who received such a report, responds: he (the teacher) speaks to his students: [3] My beloved children! It may well be that God has not yet spoken to you; but it can also be that he have spoken, but that you are too inattentive and have not noticed it. [4] Therefore tell me, Where were you, when you took hold of God in your hearts? Were you outside under the trees of the garden, or in the galleries of the hall, or were you on the great floor of the hall, or in some chamber, or were you in your boarding-rooms, which were built outside this great school? And tell me what you have seen, noticed, and felt here and there. [5] The children say, "We were outside among the trees, and we saw the glories of God's creations, which we should believe in, and rejoiced that He had done such splendid things. We imagined Him to be a very dear father, who likes to come to His children, and have thereby also felt a great longing in our hearts to see Him, and then to meet Him with all our childish love, to embrace Him and to love Him with all our might. [6] But no Father came to us from any side. We also asked each other carefully, whether one or the other have not yet noticed the Father. But every one of us can honestly say that we have not in the least seen anything at all of Him. [7] We then left the square, hurried to the booths of the lecture hall building, and did so there. But the success was the same as under the trees. We went from there to our dormitories, in the opinion that here the Father would be most likely to visit us, for we prayed a great deal, and begged Him fervently to show Himself to us. But it was all in vain! Since we have obeyed your advice in vain, we now feel compelled to agree with your doctrine that there is not a God. And so we have decided among ourselves that if there is already a God, there is not a whole, but a divided one in all the living and free beings as you and we are. God is, therefore, only a totality of the corporeal power, which first and foremost recognizes Himself and others in the beings, as you are, and also acts powerfully as such. [8] See the little philosophers here, and at the same time recognize the reason or the false seed which is the fruit of all these slippery rational speculations. [9] What does our teacher say about these philosophies of his disciples? Hear, therefore, his words: My dear children! Now I have shown you the reason in yourselves quite clearly why no God has shown up for you, neither under the trees, nor in the solitude, nor in the dormitories (that is, neither in the inquiry in nature through experiences nor dissections thereof, nor by the way of higher speculations of reason and intellect, nor in your not much better than daily life) because you have already gone out with doubts. [10] You have not definitely expected God, but only expected a probability. But God must be in Himself the highest degree of definite determination. When you have sought with doubt in your thoughts, faith and will for the highest Godly certainty, how could He reveal Himself amidst such indefinite probability? Therefore, remember what I will tell you now: [11] If you want to seek God, and you also want to see Him, then you must step out with the greatest certainty and seek Him as such. You must, without the slightest doubt believe that He is, even if you do not get to see Him for how long. Then you must embrace Him with your love with the same certainty as your belief in Him. Then it will be shown whether you have attained the greatest possible determination in your thinking, faith, will, and love. [12] If you have obtained the same, God will surely show up for you, if He does exist. But if you have not attained this determination, you will return to me without having achieved your object, as you did this time. [13] Look, the children consider the teaching of the teacher, and one, seemingly the weakest of them, goes to the teacher and says: Listen to me, you dear, wise teacher! Do you not think that if I went all alone into my dormitory, and if I would like to embrace God the Lord as the most loving Father with my love, in the right way, since I have never been able to doubt whether there is a God, but I remained, despite all the contradictory proofs, forever and steadfastly sure of God. Do not you think he would show up with me if I wanted to love Him alone? For that many thoughts and beliefs, after all, seem to me a little arduous. [14] The teacher said to the child, "Go, my dear little child, and do what is good to you; who knows for the present whether you are right? I can now give you neither a yes nor a no, but say to you, "Go and find out what love can do!" [15] Now see the child running out of the hall into his dormitory-room, and the other students question the teacher whether he preferred the enterprise of the one child, which now went to his dormitory-room, to what they are now doing according to his advice, to go out with all certainty and to search for God. [16] But the teacher said, "You have heard what I said to your fellow student, that is neither a yes or no; I also say to you. Go out or don't; do what is best for you, and experience will show which path is the better and the shorter one, or whether the one is false or the other right, or whether both are false or both correct. [17] Now see, a part of the children understand the determination concept, but others only the love. Those who enter into determination go out into the garden in full depth of thought, willingness and firm faith; but a part goes into the dormitory-rooms to seek God. [18] But as you can see, the child, first led by love for God, is led into the hall by a simple man and goes straight to the teacher. What is he going to say? [19] Listen, he (the child) speaks: Dear, wise teacher, come here! When I began to love the dear great Heavenly Father in my dormitory-room, this simple man came to me and asked me if I was really so fond of the Heavenly Father. I told him, O dear man, thou canst read it on my face. But then the man asked me how I imagined the great Heavenly Father in my mind. And I said to him, I imagine Him as a man; but only He must be very great and strong, and surely also have a great radiance, because this world and the sun shining upon it, are already so exceedingly glorious and splendid. [20] Here the simple man lifted me, pressed me to his heart, gave me a kiss, and then said to me, "Take me over to the tutor's school; there we want to discuss everything, and to properly see what the Heavenly Father looks like, if He exists, when He is, and how He creates, directs, and governs everything out of Himself. Now, behold, my wise teacher, here I am now with this simple man. Who do you think this man would be, because he treats me with so much fondness? [21] And the teacher speaks in the most obvious love and respect: O most happy child, you have already found the Right One; behold, this is God, our most loving Father! And the Lord now bows down, and takes the child upon His arm, and asks him, Am I the one whom thy teacher have announced unto thee? And the child speaks with great excitement: Oh, yes, it is You, I recognize Your infinite goodness, for who else is as good as You, that he would take me into His arms, and would cuddle and caress like You?! But I also love you so incomprehensibly much that I can never be separated from You ever again; do therefore not to leave me here, my dear Father. For I have never felt such kindness and love as now on Your arms! And the Lord says, Fear not, O my child! Whoever has once found Me like you will never lose Me forever. But now you must be very quiet about Me; for the other children who have sought Me, have not yet found Me. We will put them up for a small trial so that they may find Me; so be quiet until I give you a hint! CHAPTER 75 Longing for God as an important testimony to His existence [1] Now see, the other searching children have just come in. It is clear from the expression on their faces that they have found in neither one nor the other way, the One they are looking for. They approach their teacher a second time quite timidly, and the teacher asks them: Well, my dear children, How did it go with your looking among the trees or on the floor or on the galleries, or with the search of that part of you who have chosen to seek the Lord in the dormitory rooms? As you can see, all of you shrug your shoulders; have you not yet found and seen the good dear Father, the God of all heaven and of all the worlds? - How is your faith ordered? Do you still have doubts about the existence of God? [2] The children say, "Oh dear, exalted teacher, as far as doubts are concerned, we now have them more than ever; for behold, neither our firm will, nor our most living faith, nor all our most established thoughts on God the Lord, nor our firm love could achieve anything. If there were any God and Lord, He must have revealed Himself to us in one way or another; for behold, in the end we all have united and firmly believed that there must be a holy, good, loving God and Father. We have embraced Him with all our love and called out His name announced by you, saying, "Oh dearest, Holy Father Jesus, come, come to us, hear our childlike supplication, and show us that you are One and also love us as we love you! ? And behold, dear exalted teacher, thus we have called for a long time; but no trace was heard of any heavenly Father. It was all in vain; therefore we are perfectly certain that there is no other higher teacher or God besides you exalted teachers. [3] We indeed do not want to claim this by saying: our doubts are based on a firm ground. But we can safely assume that after such ineffective efforts to investigate the existence of God, more doubt than a firm belief in it can arise. [4] But we also see the one who has separated himself from us, seeking the Lord with love alone; did he not find anything either? [5] The teacher speaks: My dear little children, I cannot tell you about that for the time being. The children, however, continue to ask the teacher: Dear, exalted teacher! Who is that strange, plain man there, with whom one of us is busying himself and looks at him with so much love? Maybe his father has arrived here from the Earth? [6] The teacher speaks: My dear little children, that's something I cannot tell you. For the moment, however, you may take note of the fact that this plain man is exceedingly wise, and you must therefore pay keen attention if He would speak to you about this or that. [7] The children say: Oh, dear teacher, can such a simple person also be wise? For behold, we have learned till now that the teachers, like you, become more sublime and shiny the wiser they become. That man, however, does not look so sublime and brilliant, but is much simpler and plainer than you. It seems a bit strange then that he should be extremely wise. [8] The teacher says: Yes, my dear little children, with the deepest inner wisdom, the external glow does not matter at all, but it says: the more shine from the outside, the less light from the inside, the more light from the inside, the less shine to the outside. But just go and ask Him something, and you'll see straightway how wise He is. [9] Now the children go to the Lord and ask him, still suspecting nothing: You dear, plain Man! Would You not allow us to ask You something? [10] The Lord speaks: O with all my heart, My beloved little children! Just ask, and I'll find My way with the answer. The children ask the Lord: Since You have allowed us to ask You, we are just asking You what we care most about. Behold, we have been searching and proofing for some time, for and against, whether there is a God who is an exceedingly good Father in Heaven of all human beings who ever lived anywhere. But we cannot find any trace of this Father anywhere, and our teacher himself does not want or cannot tell us anything well-founded in this matter. But he has told us that You are exceedingly wise; Therefore, we would like to know from You if there is such a God and Father or not? If you know anything about it, tell us. We will listen to You carefully, and not a word will escape Your mouth that we would not pay the greatest attention to. [11] The Lord says: Yes, little children, you have indeed given me a very difficult question that I can hardly answer you; because if I would tell you that there is such a God and Father, you will say: that is not enough for us, as long as we do not see Him. And when you say then, let us see the Father, what will I say to you then? I could point you there or there with My finger, and you would see nothing; for wherever I would show you would never find your God and Father. But if I would tell you: Children, the Father is here among you! Will you believe it? [12] Would you not ask, where is He? Is he one of the teachers of this great hall? And when I say to you then: O no, my beloved children! What will you do then? You will look at Me a great deal and say: Behold, the man keeps us on a line. If it is not one of the many teachers, who is it? You would not be it? Because as simple, plain and lackluster as You are, the very noble Heavenly Father cannot look! [13] And if you have given me such an answer, what option should I offer you as reply? Therefore you should just ask Me for something else; because answering this question does not seem to be the right thing to do. [14] The children speak: O dear, wise Man! See, that's not possible. We are not interested in another question to be answered; but only to know whether there does exist a Heavenly Father or not. For if there is a Father in heaven, then we would all be exceedingly happy, but if there is none, we are all here as if without reason, and we do not know for what, through what and why? Therefore, if you can, just answer the first question; that is what we urgently ask you for. [15] That you are a very wise man, we have already taken from your evasive answer. Therefore, lead us at least a few steps closer to the one Father, because there must be one. We notice this from the fact that we have an ever greater longing after this very heavenly Father, the more He wishes to hide behind our childish doubts. [16] If He would not exist at all, where would this longing within us come from, which is as alive as we are? The certainty of the existence of a heavenly Father must indeed grow together with the yearning! [17] The Lord says: Well, little children, you are just taking the words out of My mouth! Indeed, in longing there is a great proof; But what is the consequence of longing? Is it not true, little children, that the result will be that one want to be sure of what you long for. You say that's a good answer. But I ask you now: what is the reason for the longing? - You tell Me, it's the love for the one you long for. [18] But if one wants to see something fundamentally and in the fullness of truth, is it sufficient to remain only with yearning and its consequence? You tell Me: Oh no, dear man of great wisdom! You have to go back to the bottom of it. If the great truth does not manifest itself then everything is wrong; But if it announces itself there, then one has come to the vivacious conviction that it is never anywhere else to be known and seen. [19] But look now, you little children! That one brother of you went that way; he has found the Father! Ask Him where He is, and he will point his finger at the Father! [20] Now the others fall over each other and demand that of him. And this one says, O my dear brothers! Look at Him whom you thought to be plain and simple, It is He Himself whom you have sought for so long in vain, that is the good, dear heavenly Father - holy, holy is His Name! Believe me, for I have already seen His glory. But do not believe it because I tell you, but approach Him alone with your hearts, and you will certainly find Him as true and glorious as I have found Him! [21] Look how these children now all call out, as they recognize the Father: O Father, Father, Father !!! It is You, yes, it is You! For we already had a strong suspicion in Your proximity! But since we have found you, would You never again hide from us, so that we will not have to look for You so hard again! [22] And the Lord says, Amen! Little children, your faces should from now on never again be turned away from Me! If I do not always stay with you, as now, I will be there in that sun that shines on you! - The rest will be revealed to you by your teacher. CHAPTER 76 Instructions on the second and third commandments in the second and third halls [1] But we do not need to follow what these children will still receive here from their teachers about the Lord; for they got through the period or state in which they have completely lost the Lord, and thus also the first classroom of which, as you have seen earlier, there are twelve in this division. - It would be too long to take part in the continuing education of these children in all the following classrooms. But in order that you may know what is taught in these halls, and in what way, I tell you, that you may have gathered this from the first tablet in the middle of the first classroom, as to what this great doctrine is - none other than the ten commandments of Moses, and finally the two commandments of love. [2] In each succeeding hall, a new commandment is practically taught and practiced, and that throughout, in the same manner as you had had sufficient opportunity to observe with the first commandment here in the first hall. [3] Thus, immediately in the next hall, the commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of God vain," is discussed. In fact, you yourselves also do not understand what this commandment fundamentally means, and that is why I also want to correct your understanding of these commandments through some examples and explanations. [4] Thus, in this second room, this commandment is not interpreted as if no one should not, on secular occasions, pronounce the Name of the Lord without due respect and reverence, which prohibition would certainly be of no use here. For if someone thinks that he has to pronounce the name of the Lord only in the most extreme case of need, and always with the highest reverence and respect, this would have meant nothing more and nothing less than: one should certainly never pronounce the name of God, by which two conditions are presupposed under which the name of God is to be pronounced. These conditions are, however, in the first place based on such screws, that none can say for certain and with conviction, which occasion would be such an extreme emergency which would justify the utterance of the most holy Name. Secondly, even if such a case would occur, such as in extreme life-danger, which can happen under various conditions, it is still to wonder whether any man in such most dubious conditions would possess the presence of mind and the capacity to dignify the name of the Lord as would be proper? [5] So, if you look at the explanation of this second commandment, as it usually occurs on earth, you must necessarily arrive at this final conclusion that the name of the Lord should never actually be pronounced, and for the simple reason that the two hardly discernible, given conditions can ever agree with each other. I would like to know those people on the earth who, in their highest distress, would be able to place themselves in that quietly exalted reverent and devout state, in which he may utter the name of the Lord with dignity. [6] If this would be so, then no man should pray, for in prayer he also names the name of the Lord. But man should pray daily and give glory to God and should not restrict prayer to the most extreme emergency. [7] It is clear from all this that this commandment is wrongly understood. But in order to put an end to all brooding over it with one blow, I will tell you in a nutshell how this commandment is to be fundamentally understood. And so does: Thou shalt not call the name of God vain, mean as much as: [8] Thou shalt not merely utter the Name of God with your mouth, not merely utter the articulated sound of a few syllables, but since God is the reason of your life, you must always utter it from the very bottom of your life, that is, you shalt not pronounce it mechanically, but always alive in all your actions; because whatever you do, you do with the power God has given you. If you use this power for evil action, then you evidently desecrate the divine in you; and this is your power, the Living Name of God! [9] See, so much does this commandment say, that for the first time you should know the name of God, what He is, and what He is; and then he should not pronounce it vainly with outward words just like another name, but always actively, because the name of God is the energy of man. Therefore, man should also do everything he does in this name. If he does that, he does not speak the name of God in vain with outward words, but actively and vividly. [10] And see, in this way is this second commandment practically taught to the students in this second hall, and practiced by each one until he has reached a just skill in it. If he achieved that, he then goes to the third hall for the third commandment, which is, as you know: [11] Thou shalt hallow the Sabbath. "- But what does that mean, especially here, when no more night alternates with day, and only perpetual, eternal day exists? When is the Sabbath? Since the commandment is of Divine origin, it must be an eternal and not a merely temporal rule, and must have a fully valid meaning in the realm of the spirits as on earth. [12] With you it is said that one should, on a sabbath, being a compulsory day of rest, do no servile work, by which is meant all gainful occupation. But it is permissible to perform a show, to play, even to dance like the gentiles. It is necessary to fast one day before the Sabbath in order to be able to eat better and more on the Sabbath. So even the hosts are allowed to sell their food and cheat their guests on a holiday more than any other. That is, according to law, to hallow the Sabbath; the more blessed work in the field and in the acre may not be done, but everything else is fit for the Sabbath. [13] But the Lord has shown in the world that even on the Sabbath one can work fitly and do good. But if the Lord Himself worked on the Sabbath, then I believe that every person should have enough proof that the 'hallowing of the Sabbath' should be understood as something quite different from not working, or taking something in the hands which is useful and beneficial. [14] But what is meant by the sanctification of the Sabbath? What is the Sabbath? I want to tell you very briefly: [15] The Sabbath is neither Saturday, nor Sunday, nor Easter or Pentecost, nor any other day of the week or year, but it is nothing but the day of the spirit in man, the Divine light in the human spirit, the rising sun of life in the human soul. That is the Living Day of the Lord in man, which he is continually to recognize and sanctify through all his actions, which he is to do out of love for God and out of love for his neighbor. [16] But since man cannot and will never find this holy day of rest of the Lord in the chaos of the world, therefore, let him withdraw from the world and seek that Day of the Life of the sacred rest of God. [17] Therefore the people of the Israelites were commanded to appoint at least one day of the week, when they should withdraw from worldly affairs, and seek in themselves that day of life. But the law was observed only externally and materially, and in the end it was brought to such an extent that even the Lord of the Sabbath was not recognized, the Holy Father, when driven by infinite love, came to earth on his children! [18] I think that you would fully understand from these words what was meant by the sanctification of the Sabbath and how it should be kept. [19] You should as well be able to understand the question of whether your Sunday keeping is a true sabbatical sanctification, whether one can, through an hour of worship, followed by worldly entertainment, reach the innermost, eternal Living Day of rest of the Lord? [20] If I were with you on earth, I would like to set a very high price on the proof, whether by attending church, then by hard eating, and finally by going for a walk, driving or riding, sometimes even by dancing, playing and drinking, not infrequently through lies and deceit, through ordinary personal visitations, and more enterprises of the like, one would find the true Sabbath in spirit and sanctify it. Who knows if there are not philosophers who could provide such proof? Of course he would be exposed to be like a false coin with us. [21] It is barely necessary to mention that here, only the living Sabbath-sanctification is taught to and practiced by the children. You can form for yourself a thorough concept of how these commandments of the Lord are actually to be understood. [22] Just like these two commandments and the previous one, we also want to walk through the others, for you to get a proper concept, in which sense all the commandments here are being taught to the children. And so we will proceed and take a close look at the next one, the fourth commandment in the fourth hall. CHAPTER 77 The fourth commandment in the fourth room (in the spiritual sense) [1] The fourth commandment, as you have it on earth, is: "Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long and you may prosper on earth." - This commandment is as good of Divine origin as the first three. But what does it require and what does it promise? Nothing but the obedience of the children to their parents and for this obedience, a temporal benefit. [2] Can everyone not ask and say: How can such a divine commandment sanction itself through mere temporal promises and has apparently nothing in the background which offers eternal spiritual advantages? What is up with such a temporal benefit? What does the well-being mean, what the long life, if nothing higher follows after it? [3] It's true: a good and long life is better than short and bad. But when, at the end of the life-period, the inhospitable death appears, and what advantage does the good and long life have above the bad and short? I mean, you do not need to be a fundamental mathematician to say that the difference is overall a pure zero; for the first as well as the second overcome a bare nothing, and then it matters very little whether the road to this reception was good or bad. [4] By this measure, the Fourth Commandment would be based on a very slippery ground, and the parents would indeed be sick of it, if their children were born into the world with such philosophy, and the children themselves would find little reason in such consideration, to obey her parents. Furthermore, the following critical consideration can be made of this commandment: As the commandment sounds, it has only a temporal basis, that is, merely representing the duty of the children toward their parents. [5] The question then arises: What is the purpose of this commandment here in the spiritual realm, where the children are separated from their parents forever? For if they are separated from their parents, surely they will be relieved of their earthly duty. Nevertheless, here in this fourth hall we notice this commandment written on the blackboard. Should it be related to the Lord for these children? This could be heard, however, if only the prophecy did not stand under it: "To live long and to live on earth?" If it were there: "To live forever and to live well in heaven", such a transversion of the law would be easy to understand; but a temporal promise in the eternal realm of the spirits sounds a bit strange. [6] What do you think, what will be done here, to give this law a fully established Divine prestige? Of course you shrug your shoulders and say quietly in yourselves: Dear friend and brother! If it would depend on our discretion here, then there will be a significant snag with the purely Divine sphere of this law; for, according to the above consideration, one would think it is easy to find not too much spirituality here. [7] But I tell you that exactly this commandment, like almost no other, is purely spiritual. You are now making big eyes; but the thing is no different. But in order to see this at once, I will do nothing but say this law with slightly different words, as it is also said here in this lecture, and you will immediately see the fullness of the truth. But how is it said here? - Listen! [8] Children! Obey the order of God, which proceeds from His love and wisdom (ie father and mother), so that you may live long on earth in well-being. What is long life, and what is eternal life compared to it? The "long life". denotes life in wisdom; and "long" is understood not as duration, but as expansion and ever greater power of life; for the word or the concept "life" already implies eternal duration. But the word "long" does not mean any duration, but only a spreading of the life-force, with which the living being always gets deeper into the depths of Divine life, and thereby makes his own life more and more perfect, firm, and effective. [9] This we now understand; but "well-being on earth" what does that mean? Nothing other than the taking-unto-self of the Divine life, for by the "earth" here is meant the proper being, and the "well-being" in this being is nothing other than the free being in itself, according to the completely taken-unto-self Divine order. [10] This short explanation is enough to see that this very law is completely of a purely spiritual nature. If you want to check it out more at your leisure, you will find it to be so on your own earth. But here too, it is practically taught to the children, and with the greatest benefit. But now that we know this, we immediately proceed to the fifth room. CHAPTER 78 The fifth commandment in the fifth hall - spiritually explained [1] You once again see a tablet installed in this fifth hall, and on it is written in an easy readable script: "Thou shalt not kill." If you consider this commandment only somewhat moderately and then consider the history of the Israelite people, your eyes would have to more than triple cross, if you would not see it at the first moment that there is a strange problem with this commandment "thou shalt not kill!" How, where, when, and what? [2] What does "kill" mean anyway? Does killing kill the body or deprive the spirit of its heavenly life force? If killing is restricted to the human body, the killing of the spirit cannot possibly be meant by it; for it is said that every man should certainly kill his flesh in order to enliven the spirit, just as the Lord Himself speaks: "Whoever loves his life, that is the life of the flesh, he will lose it; but whoever loses it for My sake, will receive it. " [3] Likewise, this is also evident in the nature of things. If the outer bark or pod of a fruit would not die, the fruit will not come to any living germination. But it is clear from all this that the killing of the flesh cannot at the same time be the killing of the spirit. But if this law is understood merely as the killing of the spirit, then who is sure of his physical life? [4] It is in contrast, well known to all that the prevalent contemporary multifarious exaltation of the flesh, is nothing but the "killing of the spirit." If you would compare it to the history of the Israelite people to whom, as you would say, these laws were freshly baked, you will find the strange contrast that the lawgiver Moses himself, was the first to have many Israelites killed; and his successors had to do the same with transgressors of the law. [5] "Thou shalt not kill "- this law was as good as all the others in the ark of the covenant. But what did the whole Israelite army do when it entered the Promised Land, with the former inhabitants of that land? What did even David do, the man after the heart of God? What about the greatest prophet Elijah? - See, they all killed, and very often, and often quite cruelly. [6] Whoever is of a sober and unbiased spirit, does not have to pronounce the judgment in himself and say: What is this commandment, against which, as otherwise against none, even the first prophets appointed by God were obliged to act? [7] Such a commandment is as good as none. Even in our times, the killing of brothers in war is even a matter of honor! Yes, the Lord Himself kills legions of human beings day after day; and yet it says: "Thou shalt not kill!" and David had even had a military commander killed, for he had spared a place which had to be destroyed, despite the swearing of an oath. [8] Good, I say, so it is with the commandment on earth. But here we see it in the heavenly realm, where one being cannot kill the other anymore, and certainly no one will even remotely conceive the slightest thought of killing anyone. So why is it written here on the board? For example, from a purely historical point of view, so that the students should learn here, what commandments have been given on earth? Or should these very good-natured children's spirits, for some time be brought into a lust for murder by this commandment, to then fight against it in themselves? You could indeed accept that; but what conclusion or end result will you get from this? I say to you nothing else than: If the murder-lust must finally be removed from the children, if they have proven themselves as sufficiently resistant against murder lust according to the law, one must assume also that they would not have gained or lost anything thereby, as if they had never been filled with the lust for murder. [9] But I see that in this thorough account of the matter you do not know what you are supposed to do with this commandment. Do not worry; just a few words will suffice to put everything that is doubtful in the clearest light before you, and the law will be just as worthy as on earth, even in heaven, as a sun shines in the sky! [10] But for you to grasp the following explanation easily and thoroughly, I only point out to you that in God the eternal preservation of the created spirits is the unchangeable basic condition of all Divine order. Now if you know that, look for the opposite, that is, for the destruction; and you have the full spiritual and physical implication of the commandment before you. [11] Instead of saying: Thou shalt not kill, one should say: thou shalt not destroy, neither thyself, nor all that which is thy brother's; for preservation is the eternal basic law in God Himself, according to which He is eternal and infinite in His power. But since on the earth also the human body is necessary for the everlasting education of the spirit until God's appointed time, without an explicit command of God, no one has the right to willfully destroy neither his own body nor that of his brother. [12] So, when we speak of the required preservation, it goes without saying that everyone is just as little entitled to destroy the spirit of his brother as his own by whatever means and make one unfit for the attainment of eternal life. God, of course, kills human bodies every day; but at the right time, when the spirit has matured in some or the other way. Even the angels of heaven, as perpetual servants of God, kill the bodies of men on earth; but not unless they are commanded by the Lord, and then only in the way the Lord wants it. [13] In this way do the children here learn in spiritually practical ways in which the preservation of created things consists, and how, united with the will of the Lord, it must always be handled with the utmost care. And if you have understood this only to some extent, it will certainly be plausible to see for yourself, firstly the great dignity of this law, and secondly why it also occurs here in the realm of the heavenly children's spirits. But since we know such things, we can immediately go to the sixth room. CHAPTER 79 The sixth commandment in the sixth room - What is unchastity? [1] Here again we see a tablet in the middle of the sixth room. On the board is written in clearly legible writing: "Thou shalt not practice unchastity, nor commit adultery." This is unmistakably the sixth commandment that the Lord has given to the Israelite people through Moses (Exodus 20:14, Deuteronomy 5:18, Matthew 5:27). This commandment is certainly one of the most difficult to grasp in its fundamental condition and then to exactly observe it in the very basis of life. [2] What is forbidden by this commandment? - And who cares about this commandment, the spirit, the soul or the body? Who is not supposed to drive unchastity out of these three life potentials? That would be a question. But what is actually the unchastity and what the adultery? Is unchastity the mutual act of mating? If that is the case, then by this commandment every act of procreation is included; for in this simple commandment we find absolutely no conditional exception; it is said, "Thou shalt not practice unchastity. [3] So if the act of intercourse is, in a certain way, regarded as the culmination of unchastity, I would like to know even the one who, under the present form of things on earth, could beget a generation without this forbidden act. Whether in marriage or out of marriage, the act is the same. Whether he is really committed with the intent of child-making or not, it is the same. Moreover, the commandment itself has no condition in which a regular marriage would be exempt from unchastity. [4] On the other hand, however, every human being must understand that the Lord is very much in favor of the reproduction of the human race, and to a wise education of the same. But by what means should the human race reproduce, if the act of procreation is forbidden on punishment of eternal death? I think that every human being can easily understand that there is a catch here. [5] But for that, everyone must necessarily bear witness that, among all the commandments that should be kept, nature will generally throw a mighty stick before the feet of man over which he must stumble, as with exactly this one. Anyone who enjoyed an even moderately decent education, has no problem, or at most only a very slight one, in the keeping of the other commandments; but with this commandment, nature always draws a strong line, even through the account of the apostle Paul! [6] We see an apparent prohibition of carnal pleasure, which is inseparably connected with the act of procreation. If, then, the prohibition lies only in carnal pleasure and not at the same time also in the act of procreation, then it is to be wondered whether carnal pleasure can be separated from the orderly act of procreation? Who among you can prove this and claim that two legally ordered spouses do not feel the temporal desire in the act of procreation? Or where is that couple that would not have been at least halfway driven by the imminent carnal desire for the act of procreation? [7] But we can see from this that we cannot possibly understand this commandment with regard to unchastity with regard to the bodily act of procreation. There must be either a pure act of procreation which has nothing to do with the lust of the flesh, or if such an act cannot be proved, the carnal act of procreation need not stand under this law and be regarded as a voluntary, unpunishable act of people. For it has been said before that the law is relentlessly expressed and without room for exception. [8] The necessary existence of people speaks out loud against the prohibition of this act, as well as the always relentlessly desiring nature. For, regardless of someone's class, he will not be acquitted of it when he has reached maturity. He would then have to kill his nature through mutilation, for nothing would curb his concupiscence by any means, even if he would be prevented from doing so by external circumstances. [9] So is there nothing to be done with the flesh. Maybe this law affects only the soul? I mean, since the soul is quite the living principle of the body and the free action of it depends purely on the soul, which is dead without the flesh, then it would hardly be difficult to find a super-scholar anywhere who could seriously claim that the soul has nothing to do with the free actions of the body. [10] After all, the body is only a tool of the soul, artfully furnished for its use; So what can we do with a commandment only applicable to the body, which in and of itself is a dead machine? If someone made a clumsy hit with a hoe, was it the fault of the hoe or his hand? I think nobody would to say that it is the hoe's fault. [11] Neither can one attribute the act of procreation to the body as a sinful act, but only to the acting principle, which here is the living soul. Thus, our previous critical illumination of this commandment must apply only to the soul which thinks, wants and acts in the flesh; and so the soul is necessarily free from this commandment, according to the applied criterion. So, since it's not possible with the soul either; will it be applicable to the spirit? We shall see what is to be gained with the spirit. [12] What is the spirit? The spirit is the real life-principle of the soul, and without the spirit, the soul is nothing but a substantial etheric organ, which possesses all ability to absorb life, but without the spirit is nothing but a substantial-spiritual-etheric polyp, only continuously spreading its arms after life and suck up everything that corresponds to its nature. [13] The soul without the spirit is therefore a mere dumb polar force, which carries the dull sense of satiety in itself, but possesses no judgment, from which it would become clear, with what it saturates itself and what this saturation serves for. It is comparable to an arch-cretin who feels no desire other than to satisfy himself. With what and why? He himself has no idea. When he feels a great hunger, he eats what comes to his aid, whether it be filth, or bread, or the impure food for pigs, all is equal to him. [14] See, the same it is with the soul without the spirit. And these driven cretins have also only a soul life, that is, in whose soul either too weak a spirit or often no spirit is present. But to know that this is so, you need nothing more than to look into the world of the dark spirits; What are these? They are living souls after death, who lived their lives in the most reckless and often malicious manner, and have so weakened and depressed their spirits, that in such a condition they are scarcely capable of procuring the life-saving stimulus, often pushing back all life-benefits into the eternal background! [15] How does such beings act in the hereafter compared to blessed living spirits ? No different than bums, therefore as spiritual insane ones, being still in all possible ways malformed, showing no evidence of a human stature. These beings are often with regard to their actions in the spiritual realm, just as accountable as a cretin on your earth. This shows that not the soul in itself, but only the soul in possession of the spirit, can be held accountable, for only in the spirit dwells the free will; in essence, it is all in the spirit. [16] But if this is now evident, then the question arises: How and in what way can the absolute spirit commit unchastity? Can the spirit have carnal desires? I think there could hardly be a greater contradiction than if someone wanted to seriously think of a 'carnal spirit', which would necessarily have to be material in order to even have gross material desires in it. [17] But just like an arrested one does not find any comfort in his arrest, the absolute spirit has even less passion to unite forever with his free nature with coarse matter, and to find his pleasure in it. Therefore would the notion of an unchaste acting spirit surely be the greatest nonsense a person can ever pronounce. Now one wonders: What, then, is unchastity, and who should not do it by seeing that neither the body, nor the soul, nor the spirit can impart unchastity to themselves, as we now came to know them? CHAPTER 80 About two kinds of love [1] While some may say, Moses later elaborated on this by lawfully allowing the act of procreation only between the blessed spouses, but forbade it otherwise, and has ordained the other kind of procreation, especially if a married man wishes to commit this act that such an act should be regarded as adultery and that adulterers are guilty of death on both sides. This is correct, but subsequent ordinances nevertheless do not give a different form to the law which was simply given in the beginning. Whoever wants to commit himself to this must assert his trial in the first law; for neither unchastity nor adultery are forbidden in a certain way. [2] So far, we have clearly explained what you could possibly understand by unchastity. But since all this points to the act of procreation, it is impossible to regard as forbidden the kind of unchastity we have hitherto supposed to be known by this law. [3] Now, however, a well-informed one announces himself in the matter, saying: Under unchastity, which is forbidden there, only the empty gratification of the sensual impulse is understood. Good, I say; but if a man with another man's wife, who cannot be fertilized by her husband, seriously longs for a child, I ask: can this be counted as sinful adultery? I also ask: If a young man, driven by his nature, has fathered a child with a girl, can that be counted as a sin of unchastity? [4] I also ask: If a man knows from experience that his wife is not fertile, he nevertheless sleeps with her because she has a rich flesh that stimulates him, and he therefore evidently only vainly satisfies his sensuous instinct; can this act be credited to the sin of unchastity? [5] I ask further: There are, especially in this time, as there have been at all times, an immense number of people of both sexes who are well able to produce and have a nature which is powerfully urgent; but they are unable, by virtue of political and meager circumstances, to marry. Now, if such doubly afflicted people commit the act of procreation, do they again sin against this sixth commandment? [6] It will be said: They are to sacrifice their instinct to God and not mate, so they will not sin. But I say: what judge can declare such a failing as a real sin? What, then, does the rich have the merit of being able to take a decent wife, but the poor are denied this bliss? Should the privileged have a greater right to procreation than the poor? Does money thus sanctify procreation because the rich can afford the proper possession of a woman, which is impossible for a thousand less privileged ones? [7] One can still ask: Who is really to blame for the multifarious impoverishment of the people? Certainly none other than the fortunate kingdom, who attracts many treasures through his self-serving speculation, by which not infrequently a thousand people could adequately qualify for ordinary marital status. And yet should the rich husband alone be free from the sin of unchastity, when he bears children with his own wife, and the poor man alone should be the scapegoat because he cannot take a wife? Would not that be just as condemnable as if one would on earth decide to go on a pilgrimage to a place, and be given a commandment that no one should visit this place on foot in order to receive any grace there, but everyone who visits this place and would want to receive grace, must go there in a most elegant equipage? [8] He who should find such a command righteous must certainly be in earnest of such a world, of which the Creator of heaven and the earth Himself knows nothing, that is, of a world which does not exist anywhere; or he would have to be a member of Satan! [9] But we now see from these considerations that it does not quite do with the explanation of our sixth commandment. What will we do to gain the full meaning of this commandment? I tell you in advance: It's not as easy as anyone would like to imagine. Yes, I say: [10] In order to gain the right meaning of this commandment, one must burrow deeply and grasp the matter at the root; otherwise one will always find oneself in the dubious position in which it is easy to regard as sin what is not a sin in the farthest sense, and what is really a sin, scarcely worth the trouble, considers it to be a sin. [11] But where is this root? We will find it right away. You know that love is the foundation and the basic condition of all things. Without love, nothing would never have been created, and without love, no existence would be conceivable, just as little as a world would ever have been formed without the mutual attraction of the will of the Creator. For example, if you do not understand this, think of one world without the mutual power of attraction, and you'll see how all the atoms of a world suddenly separate and vanish into nothingness. [12] Love is therefore the cause of everything and at the same time it is the key to all secrets. [13] But how can love be brought into an explanatory connection with our sixth commandment? I say to you, nothing easier than that, because in no act in the world is love as intimately interwoven as in the one we count as uncouth. [14] But we know that man is capable of a twofold love, namely the Divine, which opposes all self-love, and the self-love, which is contrary to all Divine love. [15] The question now is: if someone commits the act of procreation, what love was there the motive: the self-love, under whose authority also any craving for pleasure stands, or the Divine love, which only wants to communicate what it has, completely forgetting of itself? See, we are already pretty much on the track of the actual main principle. [16] Let us now take two men: one commits the act out of selfish lust for pleasure, the other in gratitude for the ability to procreate, to impart his seed to a woman in order to awaken a fruit in her. Which of the two sinned? I think it's not going to be difficult to judge here and make a decision. [17] In order for us to understand the matter completely, we also need to familiarize ourselves with the concept of 'unchastity'. What is chastity and what is unchastity? Chastity is that state of mind of man in which he is free of all selfishness, or in which he is pure of all the defects of self-love. Non-chastity is that state of mind in which man takes only himself into account, acts for himself, and completely forgets his fellow-man, especially concerning a woman. [18] Selfishness, however, is nowhere more disgraceful than it is in the case of a deed in which it is a matter of a man's perversion. Why then? The cause is as clear as the day. As the ground, so the seed, so also is the fruit. If Divine love is the chastity of the seed, a Divine fruit will also appear; But if self-love, self-indulgence and pleasure-craving, that is, the unchaste state of mind the seed, what fruit will come forth from this? [19] See, in that lies what is forbidden by the sixth commandment. If this commandment had been observed, the earth would still be a heaven, for there would be no selfish and domineering person on it! But this commandment was already transgressed in the beginning of man, and the fruit of this transgression was self-serving and selfish Cain. [20] But from this it follows that not only the so-called falsely named 'fornication', which should better be called 'pleasure-seeking', belongs in the series of our sins to be treated, but any enjoyment of pleasure, whatever its design may be, but especially if a man makes the already weak woman selfishly useful for enjoyment, then it is to be regarded as a sin of unchastity. - A short pursuit will make things clearer. CHAPTER 81 What is fornication? [1] One could say here, in the Sixth Commandment, that only "Thou shalt not do unchastity," and that fornication cannot be regarded as forbidden, since in the sixth commandment there is nowhere: "Thou shalt not commit fornication." But I say: What is whoring, of whatever kind, spiritual or carnal? It is a certain accommodation of vice in the following way: One philosophizes about the sinful possibility, places all phenomena in the realm of 'natural needs'. If one expresses to his own being the demand to satisfy them, then, according to his reason and his inventiveness, man does only something praiseworthy and fruitful, so that, for all the needs of his nature which are being demanded, he can bring about means by which the same goal can be accomplished , The animal must satisfy its needs in the most crude instinctive way, because it has no mind, reason, or inventiveness. In this way, however, man rises above the common, natural animal, that he alone can satisfy the requirements of his species in a refined manner. Therefore, the mind of the cultural man says: [2] Who can account it a sin to a man if, with the help of his intellect, builds an imposing house for his habitation, and thus exchanges a former burrow or a hollow tree with it? Who can account it a sin to a man, if he refines the tree fruits, and produces from the sour apples and pears, something sweet and tasty? Who can account it a sin to a man if he builds a chariot, tames the horse, and then journeys much more comfortable than with his own weak, troubled feet? Who else can still account it a sin to a man, if he cooks and spices the natural fruits to his nourishment and makes them more tasty? Or create things in the world for another purpose than to be useful to man? [3] How much beautiful and useful things have man discovered for his comfort and amusement! Would this be reckoned to be a mistake if he would pay honor to his Creator with his intellect, without which the body of the world would appear as uncultivated as a barren desert on which everything grows together in a chaotic disorder, such as cabbage, beets and stinging nettles? [4] If, however, mankind's diverse cultivation of the earth cannot possibly be counted as a misstep, even though it contains no other purpose in itself than a more pleasurable and more comfortable enjoyment of things in the world; On the other hand, a refined pleasure in procreation cannot be attributed to man as an error, for otherwise even the most educated man would be, regarding this act, the least differentiated from an animal. Thus, even this instinct of man must be satisfied in a more refined and cultivated manner, for the same reason why one builds comfortable dwelling-houses, makes soft clothes, prepares tasty meals, and so on. That is, more amenities. [5] Just assume for instance that a man of the educated class, has to choose between two female persons for his satisfaction; one is a filthy, mean peasant maid, but the other, as the daughter of a respectable house, is a well-bred, very well-dressed girl, flawless in her whole body, and all together lush and charming. Question: Who will the educated man choose? The answer will not cause a headache here; certainly the second one, because the first one will disgust him. So here, too, refinement certainly a most convenient purpose, because man attests to it, proving that he is a higher being, who has everything in his power to purify and dispose of everything unpleasant and dirty and make things clean and pleasant. [6] But since the man and the woman in this regard often have a great need to satisfy themselves, and yet cannot always make the demand to produce a child, would it again be their duty to exercise the intellectual powers, setting up the means to satisfy this impulse, be it only by blind intercourse with a woman or by self-gratification or, in an emergency, through the so-called boy's desecration? For this is what makes a man different from an animal in that he can satisfy this most natural instinct in other ways than just that which he has been instructed by rude nature. And so, after all, well-conditioned brothel houses and such institutions are to be endorsed, and can by no means dishonor the intellect of man! [7] See, what objection can be raised against this from a natural perspective? For it is true that the animal cannot achieve such cultivations and all sorts of nuances to the satisfaction of its sexual instinct, and so, in a sense, the mastery of the human understanding is undeniably to be discovered. This is all right, the animal has its time in all of this, yet otherwise, it remains dull unto the satisfaction of this urge. [8] But what is all this sophistication? It is a quick question, but the answer is big and weighty. Surely this sophistication has nothing to do with basic motives, but with appallingly exasperating lust for pleasure. But pleasure-seeking, we know, is an unmistakable child of self-love, which is quite identical with the lust for power. [9] It is true that living in a stately home is easier than living in a lowly mud hut. But let's take a look at the inhabitants! How proud and lofty we see the inhabitants of a palace company, and how humble the simple hut-dweller bows before such a splendid palace lord! [10] Let's take a look at the inhabitants of a big city and those of a small farming village. The inhabitants of the big city do not know how to help each other out of sheer lust for pleasure, they all want to live comfortably, they all have to talk, they all shine and maybe they can reign a bit. If a poor country-dweller comes to the big city, he has to address at least every boot polisher: 'Your Grace', if he does not want to expose himself to any rudeness. [11] But if we go to the village, we will still find fathers, not infrequently peaceful neighbors, who do not call themselves 'Your Grace' and 'Lord of'. What is preferable: when one farmer says to the other: 'Brother'! or if in the city, a slightly more middle-class appeals to a slightly more privileged: your grace', and 'Lord of' and the like? [12] I think it will be barely necessary to go on pursuing such nonsensical offshoots of the sophistication of the human mind, but we can at once make the main proposition: All such pleasure-seeking refinements are, according to preceding considerations, nothing but idolatry; for they sacrifice the human spirit, to the outer dead nature. [13] But if they are idolatrous, they are also the hardest whores, and their tendency cannot be accepted into the sphere of chastity. [14] Why was Babel called a whore? Because every imaginable finery was at home there. This also includes, the whoring urge in the true sense: unchastity serves all their life force. Thus, a rich husband who, for the sole enjoyment of a sumptuous and randy wife, is nothing but a barbarous fornicator, and the wife, a hard whore. And so here too, unchastity is shown in its foundations, as it is a most base desire for self-service and self-pleasure. [15] It was necessary to shed more light on this commandment for you, because man does not pass over any command as easily as he does this one. - Therefore I think that you now also understand this lecture; and so we will immediately go to the seventh room. CHAPTER 82 The seventh commandment in the seventh classroom of the children's kingdom [1] We are in the seventh hall. See, in the middle of it on a tablet on a white pillar is written in a clearly legible font: "Thou shalt not steal!" Here, at the first sight of this law-table, the question inevitably comes to everyone's mind: [2] What can be stolen here, since no one owns any property, but everyone is just a usufructuary of what the Lord gives? This question is natural and has its good meaning, but it can also be posed with the same right on the world- body; for even on the earth body, all that is there is the Lord's, and yet men can steal from each other in every possible way. [3] Could not one also ask and say: has the Lord not created the world equally for all men, and does not every man have the same right to all that the created world offers for the various pleasures? But if the Lord has certainly created the world not only for individuals, but for all, and therefore everyone has the right to enjoy the products of the world according to his needs, what good was this commandment by which man is obviously given the right to own, creating the possibility for theft? For where there is no mine and no thine, but merely a universal everything for all, then I would like to see the one who, with all his will, could steal something from his neighbor. [4] Would it not have been wiser then, to abolish every right of ownership for all time, instead of giving the commandment by which a separate property right is dangerously granted? This commandment would therefore be completely dispensable, all property courts of the world would never have arisen, and people could easily live among themselves as true brothers. [5] It must be remembered that the Lord gave this commandment through Moses just at a time when not one person had any of his own wealth among all the numerous children of Israel; for the gold and silver taken from Egypt, was the common property of the people under the supervision of their leader. [6] But as far as clothing is concerned, it was extremely simple and so poor that a single garment in your present time would certainly not exceed the value of some poor cents. Not one of the Israelites had a supply of clothing, but what he wore was all he possessed. [7] Then came this commandment. Surely the Israelite people had to ask each other with wide eyes: What should we steal from each other? Perhaps our children, yet everyone is in this present distressing situation content to have as few children as possible? Should we steal each other's pots? But what should we gain? Anyone who does not have a pot has the right to cook in the pot of his neighbor if he has something to cook. But if he has a pot, he will not have to seize another, so that he will have more to carry back and forth. It is truly unclear what we could steal from each other here. Each other's honor? We are all servants and laborers of one and the same Lord, who knows well the value of each person. If we also wanted to belittle each other, what would we achieve in the face of Him who always sees us through and through? So we do not know what we should do with this commandment. Should this commandment be valid for future times, should the Lord once want to grant each of us a separate property? If that is, then He should rather leave us as we are, and the commandment will abolish itself. [8] See, so did the Israelite people occasionally reasoned in all seriousness, and in their position in the desert, they could not be blamed; because everyone was equal in riches and equal in reputation. [9] But could not the present people, believing in the New Testament, raise their heads before the Lord and say: O Lord! Why then did You once give such a commandment, by which a special right of ownership was granted to men on earth, and because of this right of ownership an innumerable multitude of thieves, robbers, and murderers were formed? Therefore, abolish this commandment, that the army of thieves, murderers and robbers, and all sorts of deceivers, and a second army of world judges, who have ceased to be active in all manner charity, would stop their doing! [10] I say here: The call can be heard and appears under this critical lighting as completely valid. How and why? Firstly, one can certainly expect nothing but the very best from God as the most loving Father. How could one possibly think that God, as the very best Father of men, wanted to give them a constitution which must make them unhappy, temporally and eternally? [11] But if one must ascribe to God the supreme goodness, the highest wisdom, and thus omniscience, according to which He must know what fruit such a commandment will unfailingly bear, then one cannot help but wonder: Lord! Why did you give us such a commandment, why did we oftentimes become unspeakably unhappy because of it? Was it really Your will, or did You not give this commandment, but the people only added it later on because of their self-interest, for example, by isolating themselves from the general number of their brethren and then legitimising themselves in such a state to collect peculiar treasures, to help them rise more easily as rulers over all their poor brothers? See, all that can be heard, and nobody can deny it. On top of that, one has to sprinkle some grains of real frankincense on a human mind, at least during this time, if he found it worthwhile to critically illuminate the laws of Moses in this way. But who won anything in this review? Not the people and certainly not the Lord, because this criticism does not express the Divine love and wisdom. [12] But how then shall this law be taken and understood, that it may appear as perfectly sanctified before God and to all men, that it would utter the highest Divine love and wisdom, and bear in itself the wisdom of the Lord for temporal and eternal bliss? Well, as it have been explained up till now, especially presently, it has indeed only caused mischief. Therefore, by the Lord's mercy, we want to reveal the true meaning of this commandment, that men should find in it their salvation, not mischief. But in order to accomplish this, we will first consider what must be understood by stealing. CHAPTER 83 What does 'steal' mean? [1] The fact that under the concept of "stealing" it was impossible at first to understand the unauthorized removal of the material possessions of another is clear from the fact that, especially at the time of legislation, no one from the Israelite people owned any property. Even when the people had moved into the Promised Land, their state constitution was ordered as such that no one could have full ownership in this land. But apart from that, property was communal as much as possible, and every poor Israelite, if he lived in the Divine order, could find everywhere the most hospitable reception and lodging. [2] But if in this commandment meant by "stealing", the arbitrary and deliberate removal of the goods of another, then, as has been shown sufficiently clear in the course of this illustration, the blame would inevitably fall upon the legislator, thereby quietly procuring the industry and would also defend usury. For that must be obvious for everyone at first glance, if he is only capable of somewhat brighter thinking, that the right to property is then introduced as perfectly sanctioned and confirmed, as soon as one gives a law by which the property of each would be completely secured. [3] On the other hand, how could one expect such a law from that legislator who spoke to His disciples with His own mouth: "Do not worry about what you will eat and drink and what you will clothe your body with, because that is what the heathen are after. But above all, seek the kingdom of God; everything else will be given unto you. [4] The same legislator continues: "The birds have their nests, and the foxes their holes, but the Son of Man does not have a stone that He puts under his head!" On the other hand, we see His disciples even on a sabbath rubbing corn ears, and thereby obviously steal. But when the landlords complained about it, who got a reprimand and a very sensitive rebuke from the Great Lawmaker? You only have to look in the Book and everything will be clear to you. [5] We again see the same Legislator once in a position to pay a toll. Did He reach into His own pocket? Oh, no, He knew that in the nearby lake a fish had swallowed a lost stater. Peter had to go and take the coin out of the throat of the fish held by the power of the Lord and pay the toll with it. [6] But I ask: Does the finder have the right of ownership in any good find in whatever way? Did not the Great Lawgiver have to know - or did He not want to know - that what He had only the right to freely own only one-third of what He have found in fish, and that only after He made His find publicly or officially known? He did not do such. Accordingly, He apparently committed a double theft or, as much as it did, an embezzlement. [7] Further, one might ask after the principles of law - assuming that few Jews fully knew who Christ actually was - who had granted Himself the right to have the known donkey taken from their owner, and then use it Himself at His own discretion. [8] One can say here: He is the Master of all nature and everything anyway belongs to Him. That is correct, but how then does He speak in worldly terms, saying that the Son of man has no stone, and on the other hand He says that He did not come to abrogate the law, but to fulfill it to the dot. [9] If we wanted to follow His story, we would still find many things where the Great Legislator, according to the present principles of property law and the comprehensive juridical explanation of the seventh commandment, has obviously transgressed these legal principles. What would happen to anyone who destroyed an owner's tree or destroyed a large herd of pigs and more? I think we have enough of the examples that make it abundantly clear that the Great Lawmaker has intended with this seventh commandment, a very different meaning than was later given to it by a greedy and selfish humanity. [10] One can now say: This is now very clear and obvious, but the meaning He has connected it with, is still behind a dense veil! But I say: only patience! As we have until now properly illuminated the misconception of this commandment, the true meaning of this commandment will certainly be easy to find; for someone who can see in the night, will not be afraid that he will have too little light during the day. [11] What does it mean then after all, in the actual truest sense: "Thou shalt not steal?" - In the true sense it means as much as: [12] You should never abandon the Divine order, not put yourself out of it, and seize the rights of God. [13] But what are these rights and what do they consist of? God alone is holy and all power is His alone! Whom God sanctifies Himself and gives him power, he rightly owns it; but he who sanctifies himself and seizes the Divine power in order to rule in the luster of selfishness and avarice, is in the true sense a thief, a robber and a murderer! [14] Therefore, whoever is arbitrary and self-loving in whatever external appearances and deceptive means, be it earthly or spiritual, and rises above his brothers, it is he who transgresses this commandment. This is the sense in which this is taught to these children here, and it is shown in a practical way, that no spirit should ever arbitrarily use the power and might inherent in it, but only and at all times, in the Divine order. [15] But one will say now: If so, then the well-known stealing and robbing is allowed. But I say: Only patience, the next episode shall bring everything into the clear. But for now let us settle this by knowing what is meant by stealing, and that the Lord has never established a right of ownership by this commandment. CHAPTER 84 Comments on social issues [1] It can now be asked, since the Lord never introduced a right of ownership, and therefore never gave any commandment by which one should specifically respect the accumulated fortune of so many stingy usurers, and that in contrast to a host of the very poorest people, - whether one then may steal; namely, what such "usurers" contrary to the Divine law, have accumulated? Because one takes away, according to earthly laws, the stolen items from a thief as soon as he is found. Should one then not have the right to take away from the most base thieves and robbers who transgressed against the Divine law, the accumulated riches and distribute them amongst the needy? [2] According to the intellectual conclusion, none could not object to this demand; but the true man has higher powers in himself than his intellect. But what will these say to this intellectual endorsement? [3] Let us ask our charity and our love of God. What does it say in our inmost, eternally living spirit out of God? It says nothing but what the Lord Himself has spoken, namely: "My kingdom is not of this world - and who loves his outer life, he will lose the inner; but he who flees his outer life and pays little attention to it, will keep his inner self." This is what the inner spirit speaks. [4] Nowhere do we see an invitation to help ourselves from the goods of the rich. The Lord Himself says: "Pay to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor." Likewise does He not command the rich young man to sell his goods, but only gives him friendly counsel and the promise of eternal life. [5] Therefore, since we nowhere come across a commandment from the Lord, by which He had expressly commanded to somehow seize the wealth of the usurers, it is certainly as clear as day, that a true Christian has no right to disown the goods of the rich. Even the one who is in the greatest distress has no justifiable right to seize the goods of even the basest thief, but in the case of a great state of emergency, a whole people has the right to do so. [6] Why then? Because then the Lord Himself appears among the people as a ruler and thus causes a just judgment for the insatiable usurers. Not even then should anyone, except in the highest emergency, allow himself to assassinate the usurers and the hard-hearted rich, but should only take from them as much of their most superfluous treasures as the people need to support themselves, to get themselves on their feet again to be able to peacefully acquire sustenance again. [7] But the rich usurer should still be left so much that he does not suffer in the world; because that is his only reward for his work. The Lord does not want to punish anyone, but only reward everyone according to the nature of his activity. [8] But since the rich and the usurer cannot expect anything after this earthly life, it is quite fair that he finds his reward there for his talent, where he worked. [9] The Lord also will not judge a person completely in this world, so that there can still be a possibility for everyone to voluntarily turn from the world and return to the Lord. If everything were taken away from such a rich usurer, he would already be completely judged; for despair will take possession of him and an endless anger, in which he can never possibly enter the path of salvation. But if a sufficient fortune has been left for him, he is for the time being exposed to no earthly misery and does not appear completely unrewarded for his austerity; but secondly, in this condition, he is not yet completely judged, and he still can obey the counsel that the Lord has given to the rich youth, to thereby attain eternal life. [10] But where such extreme action would be taken by a deeply impoverished people, it should never be done in a gruesome way; for as soon as this happens, the Lord no longer works with the people, and the people will not see their deeds blessed! For if they prevail today, they will be beaten again tomorrow, and one bloodbath will flow into the other! Man should never forget that all men are his brothers. He should always do what he does with a love-filled heart; He should never want to do anything bad to anyone, but only to do something good at all times, especially regarding the spiritual share of eternal life. [11] If this is his purpose, then the Lord will bless his action, but on the contrary, curse it! For if the Lord, even though all authority in heaven and on earth is His, and He has no one to query what He does or does not do, does Himself not want to be an eternally deadly Judge, the less should any man on earth do something according to his ardent will. [12] But woe to the people which rises without the utmost necessity against the rich and powerful! These will be bitterly punished for this act; because poverty is of the Lord. He who loves the Lord loves poverty too; the wealth and the well-being, however, are of the world and of Satan! He who seeks that which is of the world, and loves it, has taken Satan into himself from head to toe! [13] Therefore, as long as any people can only be partly saturated once a day and still be able to sustain life, so long should it not rise. But when the rich and usurers have taken almost everything, so that thousands of poor people are evidently threatened with starvation, then it is time to rise and share the superfluous goods of the rich among themselves; for then the Lord wants the rich to be chastised to a great extent for their shameful self-love and greed. [14] At the end of the treatise on this commandment, perhaps someone might ask whether the interest on borrowed capital is not, to a certain extent, contrary to the seventh commandment. Here I say: If in a state the interest rate is determined by law, then it is also permissible, according to this interest rate, to gather the interests of the rich; but if someone has lent necessary capital to a needy person, he should not charge any interest. [15] If this poor man has helped himself with this capital to the extent that he is now bourgeois in his trade, he should be inclined to repay the borrowed capital to his friend. If he wants to pay the legal interest out of gratitude, the lender should not accept it, but he should remind the payer to give it to his poorer brothers according to his ability. [16] But no one should lend capital to the poor, but what one gives them, should given them completely. That is the will of the Lord in this regard. He who does this, will love the Lord. Since we have thus touched everything concerning this commandment, we may at once go to the Eighth Hall, in which case we shall learn a commandment which in many respects will be like this seventh. CHAPTER 85 The Eighth commandment in the eighth hall - The material shell as a means to lie[1] We are in the eighth hall, and there we see on the round tablet, well known to us from all the earlier halls, clearly written: "Thou shalt not bear false testimony", saying as much as: Thou shalt not lie. [2] This command sounds strange in the realm of pure spirits, for a spirit in its pure state is incapable of any lie. A spirit cannot speak anything but what he thinks, since the thought is already his word. A spirit in the pure state can therefore bring no untruth on his lips, because it is a simple being and can have no reserve in itself. [3] The lie is therefore only possible for an unclean spirit when it covers itself with matter. But if a spirit, even of unclean quality, is free from its coarser envelopment, it cannot speak any untruth. [4] For this reason, even the evil spirits envelop themselves with all sorts of coarse figures of guile in order to be able to lie in this wrapping. [5] Thus the well-known "Satan" in Paradise had to envelop himself in the material form of a snake before the first pair of men, so that they could thereby become ambushed and then afterwards think differently and speak differently. [6] For this sole reason, men on earth are able to lie as often as they will, because they have a hideaway in their bodies, and from there they can move the machine of the body in the opposite direction of what they think. [7] Such, however, as noted, is not possible to the pure spirits. Although they can express themselves in correspondences when they communicate with earthly people, they not infrequently say something quite different from what the inner meaning of their speech represents. But that does not mean lying, but placing the spiritual truth in earthly images that correspond exactly to this truth. [8] But we see that this commandment is of no use for the spirits, because they completely lack the ability to lie. [9] But to whom in the afterlife does this commandment then apply? I know that you will soon be able find the answer and say: It applies to the spirits enveloped in matter, and requires of them to use their covering no differently than how their thinking is conceived in them, and act in correspondence to their purely spiritual state. [10] But we know that this commandment, as well as all earlier ones, proceeds from God, as the Primordial Source of all spiritual things. As such, however, it cannot possibly have only material, and no spiritual validity. [11] But in order to get to the basis of it, we have to discuss what is meant by "lying" or "giving false witness." What is the lie or a false testimony in itself? You will say: any untruth. But I ask: what is an untruth? And then somebody will soon be able to deal with the answer and say: Every sentence that a human being pronounces in order to deceive someone is an untruth, a lie, "a false testimony." It's all good on the outside, but not inside. We want to set up a small sample for it. [12] Question: Can the will think? Every human being must deny such a thing by clearly having to say that the will behaves like the cattle in relation to the wagon. They indeed pull it vigorously; but where will it take the wagon without the thinking driver? [13] Next question: Can the thought will? Let's go back to the wagon. In the best sense of the word, can the wagoner drive the heavy wagon without the power of the beasts of burden? Anyone here will say: Thousands of the most clever wagoners can set up all sorts of philosophical principles next to the heavily loaded wagon, and yet they will not, with all these splendid ideas, put the wagon in motion until they agree in their thoughts that an appropriate power should be put in front of the wagon. [14] From this example we have seen that the will does not think, and that the thought can not will. But if thought and will are united, the will can only do what the thought leads it to do. [15] But now I ask: If it is how it is, what is it in man who can lie? The will certainly not, because this is a something that always depends on the light of thought. Can the thought be a lie? Certainly not, it is simple and cannot share. Will the body be able to lie in man? How the body can lie, being a machine that is dead in itself, and only stimulated to activity by the thought and will of the spirit through the soul, would be very strange to know. [16] I have just discovered a psychologist, and indeed from the class of spiritual dualists, who says: The soul of man is also a self-conscious thinking being and thinks partly natural and partly spiritual images. Thus, two kinds of thought may indeed be formed in it, namely natural and spiritual. It may therefore cover the spiritual in itself, but since the will of the spirit is also at its disposal, it can, instead of pronouncing the truth or the spiritual thought, express the natural, completely opposite thought than that of the spiritual truth. And if he does that, he lies or gives false testimony. What do you think, is this conclusion correct? [17] This appear to be correct, taken from the external man's perspective; but he is nevertheless fundamentally wrong; for what kind of activity would result if, for the purpose of forward movement, one would harness the same number of horses of equal strength in front and to the back of it, and have drivers to steer both teams? [18] As the car would never be moved from the spot, the same it would seem to be with one's life, if it would stand on two opposite life-principles. That would be just as much as plus 1 and minus 1, which adds up to zero. [19] So there just have to one single living principle; but how can this lie and give false testimony? [20] Either this principle, as proven, cannot lie and give false testimony at all, or the concepts of "lying" and "giving false testimony" has to be understood to be something fundamentally different, than what has hitherto been understood. [21] Somebody would of course say: If the matter is to be taken this way, any falsehood known to us, every false oath, as well as every fraudulent word, is not to be regarded as sinful, but should be freely used. Well, I say: the objection would not be so bad, but according to your proverb: "Whoever laughs last laughs best," we shall reserve a similar pleasure for the conclusion. CHAPTER 86 What is false testimony?[1] But if we are able to disentangle this Gordian knot in a certain sense with one blow, let us immediately go into the discussion of the main concept of this eighth commandment. [2] We know that the Lord gave every spirit a free will, and also a free thought was given to illuminate free will. This thought in spirit is in fact the vision and the light of the spirit, through which he can see things in the natural sphere. [3] Besides this light, which every spirit has received particularly from God, he also has a second ability to receive an innermost, most holy light from God; but not through his eye, but through the ear, which is actually an eye. Certainly no eye for the reception of external appearances, which are produced by the almighty will of the Lord, but it is an eye for the reception of the purely spiritual light from God, namely the Word of God. [4] You can see that from your still natural condition, if you pay only a little attention to how different this is, what you see with your eyes and hear with your ears. Through your eyes you can only see natural images, but with your ears you can absorb rays from the innermost Divine depth. [5] You can hear the language of the spirit in the harmony of sounds, or rather, you can already externally hear the secret forms of the innermost spiritual creation through your fleshly ears. How deeply backwards does the eye stand in comparison to the ear! [6] See, it's the same with the spirit. By virtue of such a device he is capable of accommodating two things, namely the external pictorial and the intrinsically essential reality. [7] In this double vision lies the secret of the free will. [8] Every human being, be it purely spiritual or still enveloped in matter, naturally hangs between the external and the internal through this ability. He can therefore always see a countless number of external forms, but he can simultaneously absorb just as much of the inner, purely Divine truth. [9] With the light from the outside, he grasps nothing of all that is seen, but merely the external form, and thus can be the creator of his thoughts in himself through the reception of these forms. [10] With these thoughts, he can also set his freely disposable will in motion, as and when he wants. [11] If he does not use the other eye of the inner Divine light, but is merely content with and deals only with forms, then he is a man who evidently deceives himself; for the forms are empty appearances for him as long as he cannot grasp them in their depths. [12] But if a man who simultaneously also possesses the inner light he received from the Lord and beholds it, perceives the interior of the forms, but disguises it and testifies only to the outer forms differently than he does about its great importance which he perceives with the inner spiritual eye, which is the ear; see, this is when he gives a false testimony to the externally perceived forms. [13] Here we have already foundationally discussed what it basically means to give a false testimony. In the main point is however once again, that it is important that man should not speak of Divine truth in any other way than he perceives it in himself. [14] But with regard to the most inner things, the situation is as follows: love is equal to the inwardly perceived light of truth directly from God, and wisdom is equal to the radiating light from God through all infinite eternal spaces. [15] When someone would possess the love, but would not practise it, but would, with his outer light and his divided will, continuously reach out more and more to the infinitely radiating rays, he becomes increasingly weaker, but because of his spirit fraying at all sides, he becomes increasingly bloated and increasingly less receptive for the inner, loving light of truth out of God. [16] If this is the case, then such a person becomes ever more dissimilar to God, and thereby gives with every atom of his being, a fundamentally false testimony of the Divine essence, whose perfect symmetry he ought to have been. [17] Therefore, he who hears the Divine word but does not follow it, but follows only that which captivates his outward eyes, and thus excites his sensual will, he gives with every step that he makes, with every word he speaks every movement of the hand he makes, a false testimony. Even if he wants to speak the purest Divine truth, the pure word of the Gospel, he lies and gives a false testimony to the Lord because he does not act according to the Word and the Truth. [18] Such a person who prays and performs his devotion to God, but does not live according to the word of the Lord, is a liar, as long as he is warm and alive. His prayer is there but an external formula whose intrinsic value is lost altogether, because the inner Divine light is not used to illuminate and enliven the interior of this external form. [19] It's just the same as if someone would look completely enraptured at a star. What good does all this delight and contemplation benefit him if he cannot regard the star in close proximity as a wonderful world? He resembles a starving person in front of a locked cupboard. He may still look at this bread-cupboard so yearningly and so adoringly, but will he be saturated with it? Certainly not. For as long as he cannot bite into the inside of the bread and absorb it into his stomach, all contemplation, worship, and delight from the bread-cupboard, will do him no good. [20] But how can one open the bread-cupboard of true God-likeness and satisfy oneself? Certainly no other way than by using the innermost means in oneself and directing oneself to the truth received from God. Also, to use the external forms only for their intended practical purposes as far as one has found it to be identical with the innermost light and therefore as a Divine truth. As soon as that is not the case, everything that man does and endeavor, is a false testimony to the inner Divine truth and thus a gross lie to every fellow human. [21] Therefore the Lord says, "He who prays, should pray in the Spirit and in truth," and, "If ye pray, go into your closet," and also: "Do not think what you will speak, for in the same hour it will be put into your mouth." [22] Here, evidently, outer thoughts are indicated, which are therefore in themselves no truth, because they are thoughts; for the truth is inward, it motivates for action according to the Word of God, and is always manifested rather than being a subsequent flood of thoughts. [23] Therefore should everyone also be guided by this inner truth and act accordingly. He will always more and more actively connect his thoughts with this inner light and thus come to inner unity and thus to the Divine likeness in which it then becomes forever impossible for him to be a liar. [24] But that everyone who speaks differently than he thinks, and acts differently than he speaks and thinks, is a liar, is self-evident; for such a one is already buried in the very outermost, grossest matter, and has removed the whole Divine form from his spirit. As such will this commandment also be explained to the students in its innermost content. Knowing this, we may at once move on to the ninth room. CHAPTER 87 Ninth hall - ninth commandment [1] We are already in the ninth hall and look again at our round table, on which is written: [2] You should not long for what is your neighbor's, neither for his house, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor his land, nor for everything that grows on it. [3] If we look at this commandment, we must evidently lose ourselves in the same judgments and undergo the same criticism that we have already met in the seventh commandment. For here again there is talk of property, and according to it, one should not have any desire for what one or the other was legally externally appropriated to own. [4] Who could not at once come back to the question and say: How could this commandment be given to the Israelite people in the wilderness, where there is no one who possesses a house, an ox, a donkey, nor any land or seed? One would have to imagine this property among the Israelite people. And at the most it could mean: If your neighbor imagines that he has something, then you should not imagine that you should have something similar, or even the imagination of your neighbor, to have it as if it were seriously your property or as if you want to actually own it. [5] I think that not many critical judgments will be needed here to see the utmost airiness of such a command at first sight. A commandment must always be there only for some assurance of a fixed reality, the loss of which must be something every one of them must have. But what would an air-castle architect lose to another air-castle architect, who would take the unlawful audacity of his fellow air-castle builder seriously. I think the weighing of such enormous damage would require a very fine, even ethereally spiritual scale to measure. If, according to the opinion of a certain sect on earth, the Archangel Michael is seriously endowed with such instruments, I am firmly convinced that he certainly does not lack such a very delicate weight-measuring instrument. [6] I have here only said this in order to accentuate the utter voidness of a purely imagined possession. If it is then so, then why such a commandment, which can certainly not uphold any security of the property of another, where no one has anything in the likeness of property, after which one should not desire, according to this commandment? [7] But one will argue here and say: The Lord has foreseen that, over time, men will create a right of ownership among themselves, and in this regard has already made in advance a command by which a future human property is secured and no one has a mutual right to be allowed to disown the property of his neighbour in whatever way. That would be a nice conclusion! I think Divine love and wisdom could not easily be inflicted more dishonor than with such judgment. [8] The Lord, who surely will advise every human against acquiring anything on earth; the Lord, before whom every earthly wealth is an abomination, should have made a commandment for the purpose and favor of greed, self-love, of usury and avarice, a commandment for the sure awakening of mutual envy? [9] I think it will not be necessary here to spend any more words; for the absurdity of such an exegesis is too obvious to anyone's eyes to require a long and broad discussion. [10] However, in order to make the case palpable for the blindest, I ask every law-abiding lawyer: What is the basis for the right of ownership? Who gave the first person the property right of a thing? Take for instance a dozen immigrants in an uninhabited land. They find it and settle there. According to which ownership and ownership certificate can they take possession of such a land and settle there as legitimate owners? [11] I already know what they will say here: whoever comes first has the basic right. Well, I say, who then has more or less the right to the found land than the twelve immigrants? It will be said: Strictly speaking, the first instigator of the emigration, or the one who had at first seen this land from the deck of a ship, has the most right. Well, what advantage does the initiator have above the others? If they had not moved with him, he would certainly have stayed home. What has the first seer more than the rest? That he might have sharper eyes than the others? Should this advantage, which only benefits him, be a disadvantage to the others? That would be a rather unfair. So surely all twelve must have equal ownership of this found land. [12] But what do they have to do to realize their equal ownership of this land? You will have to divide it into twelve equal parts. But who does not see the coming quarrels at this division of the first land pieces? For surely will A say to B: Why must I take possession of this part of the country, which in my judgment is obviously worse than yours? And the B will reciprocate for the same reason: I do not see why I should swap my land part for yours. And so we can let our twelve colonists divide the land for ten years, and we will not see that the division will be all right. [13] But would these twelve agree among themselves and make the land a common property; can there then be a commandment to secure property among the twelve? Can one take away something from the other, if the whole country belongs to all, and thus also its products, all of which everyone can take as he pleases, without billing the other for it? [14] In the first case one sees here that originally, a creation of property rights is not easily conceivable. To see that this really is the case, you only have to look to the first settlers of certain areas of your own country, like the so-called Herren-Kloster clergy, who were in a sense the first settlers of this region. If they would be content with division and considered it good, they would certainly not have formed a common good. [15] In short, we can do what we want, but we cannot find any original ownership anywhere. And if somebody comes with his fundamental right, I ask whether one should kill the descendant at the moment of his appearance in the world, or let him slowly starve to death? Or should he be driven out of this country? Or leave him to the mercy of the landowners, but at the same time immediately protect them against him by means of the latest laws? [16] I think it would be fair to ask on what grounds such a descendant can, from the moment of his arrival, be made a scapegoat with regard to the right of land ownership, while the first arrivals could not sin against each other in this? Which lawyer can prove such behavior to me as legally valid? I mean, one would only be able to prove this if you have a satan as a lawyer; for every man, who thinks only reasonably well and fairly, would find such a legal proof impossible. [17] But I can already see that it will be said that in the first colonization of a country there can be no reciprocal property right between the colonists, especially if they have mutually compensated for the common property. But between colonisations, out of which came the first formations of states, the ownership right certainly occurs as soon as they have established each other's right of existence. [18] Well, I say, if that is the case, then each colony must have original property rights. But how can they, since they only received a right of usufruct from the Lord, but no right of ownership? [19] The right of use has its certificate in the stomach and on the skin. But where does the right of possession express itself, especially when one considers that every human being, whether native or foreign, carries in his stomach and on his skin the same Divine legal right of use as the native does? If one says: The right of ownership has its origin in the rights of use, then this sentence certainly removes any special fortune, because everyone has the same right of use. But if one reverses the matter and says: Ownership gives you first the right of use, because one cannot say anything other than the old legal word: "Potiori jus", which in other words means as much as: Kill so many usufruct owners by the power of your fist, that you alone can be complete master of a piece of land. [20] Should some foreign usufruct owners still have the appetite to dispute your fought for possession according to their Divine right of use, then beat them all to death or use them, at least in a better scenario, as taxable subjects, so that they may, on your conquered possession, work for you in the sweat of their faces, that you may grant them their right of use according to your discretion. Step up whoever will, and grant me another right of possession; indeed I will surrender all my bliss to him, and I want to be made the most needy citizen on earth for it! Who, from the Divine side, can justify this war? What is he? Nothing but a most brutal coup d'état, taking the right of use from the people and forcibly introducing a right of possession, that is, to destroy the Divine right and to introduce a hellish one in its place. [21] Who then could expect a law from God which would abolish the original Divine Law of Utilization, which was clearly documented in everyone's being, and replace it with divine power and authority, with a law of hellish right of property? - I think the absurdity of this assertion is even bright and clear for a completely blind man and can be grasped with gloved hands. [22] But from this it is clear that this law must certainly have a different meaning from that of men, where it only secures possession. As Divine law, it must also be valid in all heavens from the depths of the Divine order. But where does anyone in heaven own houses, oxen, donkeys and fields? Heaven is full of usufructuary rights, and the Lord alone is the owner. We therefore want to move on to the right meaning of this law. CHAPTER 88 Reflections on the ninth commandment [1] However, before we give the full explanation, it will be necessary to make a few remarks in order to shut up the mouths of many juridical wolverines and outraged international law publishers. For they would be able to derive the right to ownership from the collection rights, by which they would apparently be able win the case against us. Therefore, we want to entrench ourselves on this point. [2] However, it is not to be denied that everyone must have the right of collection before any rights of use. Because, before someone picks up and prepares something with his hands and his strength, he cannot assert his right of use. That's right, before anyone wants to put an apple in his mouth, he has to pick it from the tree or the ground. [3] For the "collection right" he also has several Divine documents. Certificate No.1 is the eyes. With these he has to look where something is. Certificate No.2 is the feet. With these he has to move to where something is. Certificate No.3 is the hands. With these he has to reach out and take something. So according to this deed, the man has before the Lord the lawful right to collect as an undeniable property. [4] But could it not be said here: is not the collected material then completely the property of the one who, according to his Divine right of collecting, has collected it for his use? Now does another have the right to judge his hands or desire by what his neighbor has gathered? Because one right obviously depends on the other. If I have the natural right of use written by the Creator in the stomach and on the skin, then I must also have the right to collect, because without the right of collection, I cannot satisfy the right of use. [5] But what good is the collection right if it does not secure the bite I bring to my mouth? Because, since everyone has the right to take the apple, which I have picked up with my hand according to my collection right, out of my hand, because he is too comfortable to pick one up, I must obviously forgo my right of use and must starve, whether I like it or not. [6] It is thus necessary that the collection right would at least demand the property right regarding what one has collected, otherwise no right of use could honestly be reasonably thinkable. [7] The right to collection is connected with the right of preparation and production is combined with the collective right. If I would not be allowed to assert the full right of ownership over what I have prepared and produced, then all activity is in vain, and I am compelled, firstly, to consume all the edible things in secret, and, secondly, to always go about naked. Because if I make myself a garment and another, which is too lazy for this work would take it away from me according to his right of use, then the question is: what would be the case with my right to use? [8] If I build a house in a colder area and have no ownership rights according to the right to collect and produce, then the next best company can drive me out of the house and exercise my own right of use in my place. [9] From this, however, it can be seen that, with the natural right of acquisition, a certain prerogative of property rights should be granted to the actively producing person, without which such a property right, taken and considered as is, the existence of a human society is not even remotely conceivable. [10] If, however, the right to collect and prepare are admitted as completely valid, then a piece of land, on which I have cultivated a seed, like a tree which I have planted and refined, must also have been prerogatively considered to be my property. [11] But ask further: who grants me such a right at the planting of a colony? The matter is easy to explain. The colonists choose from their midst one void of greed and wise leader. They grant him the rights to divide and distribute and thus also the responsibility to protect, under mutual oath swearing, as insurance for the maintenance of and compliance to his decree. Because of this assurance, one or the other rebel would be called to order by these order-abiding brothers on behalf of the leader. The how and the means does not matter, for these can and must be first determined according to the degree of the rebellion and then executed. [12] Who does not immediately see the submission and the first monarchical foundation of a state? Also, who does not also see that, as soon as the right to collect, and the right of acquisition and preparation is systematically connected with a prerogative right of property, nobody can be limited to the right of collection, acquisition and preparation on his property granted to him. On the contrary, the chief executive must only endeavor to encourage his subjects to collect and produce as much as possible on their possessions. And the more one acquires by diligence on his property, the more pleasant a situation he creates for himself, and the less limited becomes his rights of use. [13] However, once this right of ownership has been ascertained to secure the right of collection, acquisition and use, this right inevitably leads to the right of hatred; for without this right, no one is the rightful owner of the property he has received from the leader. [14] But this hate-law first requires a precise survey of the property. Once the borders have been determined, only then can any owner make use of the hate rights or the rights of defense of his property. [15] But this hate right is not feasible without authorized guardians. So we have to set up military men, who have the unlimited right to secure everyone's borders. You must therefore have the right of execution, that is, a criminal or punishment right. But who should guide these military men? Certainly none other than the head of the entire colony. [16] Here, therefore, we have necessarily the emergence of the military state, but at the same time also the determination of an unlimited power of the leader, who can now already command the military men and sanction his commandments. [17] Have we brought it so far, who can still stand there and say: The present state constitutions are not based on this Divine right? Yes, it is all right for a critic, only he cannot yet understand the overarching right of ownership of the monarch. But I say: If one has proved the former in such a way, which was far more difficult, then the right of ownership of a monarch beside it can be proved with a sleeping hood on. We shall see. [18] If, on the part of the leader's executive wisdom, the right of property is properly in place and the leader has an army at his disposal, capable of guarding the colonists' possessions, does the leader not have a twofold right to say to the colonists: I am in your midst, have provided for you through my wisdom, and you have made me the leader because you have recognised me as the least greedy man among you. [19] Therefore, I have fairly distributed the land among you, and now protect your property with my wisdom and with the wisely-led military men. But in the distribution I have completely forgotten myself due to my lack of greed. But you will surely see, if you would have need of my continual wise direction, that I cannot live off air. After that, what am I supposed to have for my maintenance in order to live? I have no time for collecting, because I have to use my time to constantly reflect on how your property needs to be continually secured. [20] So you will see that a faithful worker is worth his reward. That's why I'm declaring that you agree to support me out of your secured supply. I can claim this from you even more rightfully, since the preservation of your mutual right of ownership depends only on my consideration. In addition to my protection, however, the support of the army, which secures your property, is also necessary, for they too, do not have time to work, by keeping your borders in good order. [21] Your own salvation and well-being must therefore make it clear to you that I and the army are unlike you, unable to work, and that each of you therefore should agree to pay me a certain amount of tax for his own benefit. [22] This announced demand seems completely legal and reasonable to all colonists, and they are content with the regulation. In this way, the chief executive has already asserted his first natural, if not supreme, yet co-owned right of all the settlers. [23] But there is such a small gap between co-ownership and the overruling right of ownership that even the smallest child can get a hold of this concept. The boss just needs to say: My dear colonists! It is not unknown to you that another colony has settled over against us. In order to protect us from it, you must give me the unqualified right in everything, so that I can act as your leader in case of emergency, as the main owner of your property, and in such a case can secure the external borders according to my wise insight. I must have the right, in your name, for your own benefit, to negotiate with a foreign nation if it would be more powerful than us. [24] You should also, being colonists who is in need of my guidance, understand what is easy to understand, that I as your leader, must have a permanently built place in your midst in which I can protect and preserve myself, above all for your preservation. But it is not enough for my well-justified security that you build me a dwelling-house, but in order to build my dwelling house, other dwellings have to be erected in order to accommodate the army, who are only dependent on my leadership. In other words, you must build for me in your midst a permanent home (residence) in which I am fully secure, both from strangers and from your own possible attacks. [25] Here we see with great clarity how the monarch necessarily declares himself the landlord of a country. But that was not enough. We want to hear other reasons as well, from the mouth of the founder himself, for he continues to speak: [26] My dear colonists, the indisputable reason for the establishment of a permanent place of residence for me in your midst, I have shown to your insight. So you have the first reason. But listen to me: The land is vast; it is impossible for me to be everywhere myself. Therefore I want to audit you and I will distribute out of you the wisest ones as my officials and deputies all over the country. These proxies then you will then owe the same obedience as unto me, for their own benefit. [27] If, however, one or the other subjects under my wise management has been accused of alleged injustice by these my chosen officers, then shall everyone have the right to bring his complaint to me, where he can then be assured that the case will be attended to with perfect justice. On the other hand, for your own benefit, in order to prevent all disputes, you must give me the most faithful and conscientious assurance that you willingly follow my final judgment without the slightest further refusal. In the opposite case, for the good of all, I must also be assured of the indisputable right by all, to deter a rebellious person to defy my final judgment by means of a chastising force in order to obey my will. If all this is done in order, then you will become a truly happy people! [28] Here we see a second step, derived from all former things: Firstly, the sole rule, and secondly, the sole possession of the whole country. And so, in this way, we would have irrefutably displayed the first reason, which was completely grounded in the nature of the matter. This reason can be called the natural, derived from human society. But somebody will say that all this is in and of itself just as true to nature, as surely and certainly the man needs the eyes to see and the ears to hear. We look at these colonists, who are still very crude, and find them to be most zealous and fully obedient to their leader. [29] Yet, exactly from this obedience, the colonists begin to feel increased fear for their leader. And in this fear, one and the other soon ask each other: why is it that among all of us this man is so clever, and we are all to be regarded as true fools compared to him? This question, so small and inconspicuous as it appears at the beginning, is of extraordinary importance, and in its answer is expressed the inviolable official signature to the autocracy and of the sole property right of a monarch. That sounds weird, some might say in advance. Have just a little patience, and we'll see it in another light right away! CHAPTER 89 The inner sense of the ninth commandment [1] See, until now we have seen everything develop from the natural ground; but up till now there has been no higher divine sanction on any ground, by which man alone on earth, especially in his simple state of nature, is led to the inviolable consideration of all that has been imposed upon him by his leader as a duty. [2] The wiser such a primitive monarch initially guides his people, and the more the people are persuaded that the leader is really wise because of his successes, the more they will begin to ask each other: wherefrom is his wisdom and wherefrom our stupidity? The people still know very little or nothing about God, but the leader still has more or less good ideas about Him. [3] What should he now do, if the people who are naturally organized as well as possible, approach him now with such questions from all sides? He summons the more capable, proclaiming to them a supreme being who has created everything and directs everything. Then tell them, in answer to their varied questions, that he receives the wisdom to guide directly from this supreme being. He shows them, with the greatest ease, the undeniable existence of a supreme, all-creating, sustaining, and governing deity, and that this deity only bestows the deep wisdom to whom he has designated to be the beatific leadership of the people. [4] This then means something like: "By the grace of God," or as with the Romans: Favente Jov. " Once this step has been taken, the sole ruler and the sole owner is ready to go, and now sits perfectly safe in his center of power, supported by a powerful natural, and even more powerful spiritual necessity. [5] Anyone who has thoroughly gone through all this must finally say: Surely not one atom of this can be criticised, because everything is so closely connected with the first natural-legal records of every human being that one would not dare to split the thinnest thread in order to destroy a happy human society down to its innermost foundations. You can take away anything you want, the defect will soon be visible in the first natural principles of every human being. [6] But if, then, the matter is as such, it follows as clear as sunshine from that, that the Lord of Heaven and the earth, through this ninth commandment, has set up nothing but the complete safeguarding of the particular property for the maintenance of the first principles of natural law. And so there can be no other meaning behind the commandment than what His words signify. [7] For if one wants or is in a position to subject this commandment to any other meaning, then one abrogates the main reason of the first natural-law bourgeois association sanctioned by a supreme being. Ownership, when lifted, necessarily removes the original documents of each person, and no one can collect and make anything more. If he cannot do that, his stomach and his skin go under, and man will be worse off than any animal. With the removal of the literal meaning of this commandment, one takes away in advance every leading chief, and humanity stands in its first wild and chaotic state of nature, sunken beneath the animal kingdom. [8] That's right, my dear friends and brothers. So far we have seen that through the representation of the inner spiritual sense, the external, natural sense in its just external effect has nowhere been violated. We have also seen that through the ignorance of the inner sense, a given commandment is observed with either very great difficulty, not seldom only for a third part, or not at all. [9] But if a commandment is recognized according to the inner senses, then the natural observance results automatically, especially when someone puts a good seed into the soil. Then the fruit-bearing plant will develop out of it, without the human being having to apply any manipulation to it at all. [10] And so it is with this commandment. If it is recognized and observed inwardly, then everything external, which touches on the sense of the letter, is itself of the good Divine order. But if this is not the case, one sticks only to the external senses, then one thereby negates all legitimate documents of man. The rulers become tyrants and the subjects miserly and usurers. The skin of the gentle is stretched over the military drum or the good-natured donkeys of subjects become the malicious tools of the powerful and usurers. [11] The consequences of this are full-scale uprisings, revolutions, state upheavals and destruction, mutual bitterness among peoples, and then protracted bloody wars, famine, pestilence, and death. [12] What, then, is the meaning by whose observation all peoples must find their indestructible temporal and eternal happiness? In short, it is as follows: [13] Respect one another out of true, mutual brotherly love, and do not envy one another, if one would be given more grace by Me, the Creator, because of his greater love. The one who received grace, however, should let the benefits coming from it benefit all his brothers as much as possible, and so you will thereby establish among you an eternal life-bond, which no power will ever be able to destroy! [14] Who does not immediately recognize that in this explanation of the commandment, not a tick of the literal sense is disregarded. And how easy is this commandment, of course, to think about when one observes it spiritually. Because he who respects his brother in his heart, will also pay respect what he collected and produced. The spiritual observation of this commandment avoids all usury and all exaggerated selfishness, but only find its sanctioned representative or advocate only in those adhering only to the literal sense. A little review will put this all in the clearest light. CHAPTER 90 Blessings of wise limitation [1] In everything, as well as in the commandment, it is by no means stated as sinful or faulty in spirit or nature, for someone to acquire the things collected and made with his hands for his needs; and to such a degree that his neighbor do not have the right to deny him such ownership in whatever way. On the contrary, everyone in it finds only a perfect guarantee of their legally acquired property. [2] But in everything that is said, as in the commandment itself, a wise limitation in the right to gather is offered to everyone. But that the commandment seeks to achieve this in the natural sense, and is meant to be like this even from the Divine order, is most easily visible from the primordial property birthright of every human being. But how? We shall immediately see. [3] How much does the first legal expert in man, the stomach, need according to fair measure? This can certainly be determined by every moderate eater. Suppose a moderate eater needs three pounds of food for the day, which is easily calculated over three hundred and sixty-five days. This is therefore a natural need of a human being. He is allowed to collect this quantity every year. If he has wife and children, he can gather for each person the same quantity, and he has acted completely in accordance with his natural rights. A strong eater, who has to do particularly heavy work, is allowed to collect twice as much. [4] When this is generally observed, the earth will never have to speak of need. For the way the Lord have organized the fertile land area, twelve thousand million people can make an abundant and proper living with proper cultivation and distribution of the land. At present there are hardly any over one thousand million people on earth, and among them there are seven hundred million people living a life of great need. [5] What is the reason for that? Because the very conditions of this Divine law, which is founded in the nature of every human being, are not brought into living practice. [6] Let's go further. How tall a man is, and how much skin he needs to cover, can also be easily measured. But every human being is allowed to obtain a fourfold covering of the skin according to the season. This is the natural standard for the accumulation of the clothing materials and their preparation. But I want to add once again so much to the upper clothing, and four times more to the underwear, and that for the sake of a clean change. [7] If this measure is applied, there will be no naked human on the whole surface of the earth. But if tremendous garment factories are built on earth, which buy the raw materials with enforced shameful prices, then make an innumerable quantity of more luxurious than useful clothes, and sell them mostly at ridiculous prices to paltry humanity, as well as to many affluent ones, then in the course of ten years, especially the women, people are provided with more than a hundred-fold change of garb - thus, natural proportion is utterly disturbed and of a thousand million people at least six hundred million have to walk around naked. Let's go on. How big does a house really need to be to comfortably accommodate a couple of people with family and necessary servants? Go to the countryside and see for yourself, and you will surely come to the realization that a just and comfortable accommodation does not require castles and palaces with a hundred rooms. [8] Anything exceeding such proportions, is against the order of God and therefore against His command. [9] How big must a property be? Take a mediocre producing country. On this, with moderate work, and on a surface area of one thousand square klafter, even with a mediocre yearly harvest, a perfectly sufficient provision for a whole year can be produced. With good soil, half of that is enough, with bad soil, the amount per person can be doubled. The size of land accredited for possession according to natural law, depends on the number of people living in a family house. But we want to be generous to the utmost extent and give twice as much for each person and determine it as being fully approved of God as a natural law. Even if the lands were distributed in this way, more than seven thousand million families on the surface of the earth could also find their fully secured land property. [10] But the present state of affairs on the earth regarding basic distribution is that the land belongs to a few landowners. All the rest of the people are either co-owning, under lease or leased out, and the vast majority of the people on earth do not have a stone to support their heads. [11] Therefore, anyone who possesses more than this given measure, possesses it against the Divine and natural law, and, such a possessor perpetually sins against this commandment. He can redeem this sin only by possessing the greatest possible degree of generosity, and in a manner of speaking only as a guardian, to work his too-large possession for a fair number of homeless people. But how this is foundational to this commandment, we will see in the second point of this reflection. CHAPTER 91 Sin against the Divine order of the ninth commandment [1] Secondly, this commandment itself expresses the wise limitation of the right to collect and produce quite obviously and palpably. If we place the relative primordial property from the first point of observation adjacent to it, the ninth commandment points precisely to this by expressly forbidding to have a desire for what is the other's. [2] So what is the other? The other is that the Lord have created just as much ground on the earth for the sole maintenance of man as there is given to him by his measure of natural law, derived from his needs. Anyone who collects and manufactures more than this measure, in fact, even in the first degree, sins against this commandment, for in this commandment even the yearning desire is already shown to be criminal. [3] In the second degree, the lazy sins against this commandment, who is too lazy to exercise his original right of collecting, but only with the desire to gain possession of what another constitutionally collected and manufactured. [4] We see from this that one can thus make oneself guilty against this commandment in a twofold manner, namely firstly, by an exaggerated want of collecting and processing, and secondly, by omitting it altogether. For both cases, however, the command is the same as the wise restriction. In the first case it restricts exaggerated collecting and processing greed, in the second case laziness, with the intention of finding the just middle road; because it expresses nothing else than the respect united with love for the natural needs of the neighbor. [5] But one can oppose here and say that there are presently many rich and wealthy people who, with all their wealth and riches, do not possess a square foot of country property. They have come into a wealth of money through lucky trading speculation or inheritance and now live on their legal interest. What to do about these? Is their property according to the Divine right of natural law or not? For by their possession of money they do not restrict human property by refusing to buy anything anywhere, but they lend their money to good places against the legal interest; or they make other permissible exchange transactions and thereby increase their capital share by many thousands of guilders annually, where they do not need the hundredth part of their annual income for their good food, according to the right of natural need. But they are not uncommonly very just, sometimes even charitable people. Do these too, fail against our ninth commandment? [6] I say here: It does not matter, whatever it is, for a person to possess beyond his need, or to have too much money or too much land. It is all the same. For if I have so much money that I can buy myself a few square miles of land as estate property, that is just as much as if I had really made so much land for this money. On the contrary, it is even worse and much more contrary to Divine order. For whoever possessed so much land property, would necessarily have to be able to provide a living for a few thousand people, since he personally would not be able to handle such a large land property. [7] But consider a man who does not have property, but so much money that he could almost buy a kingdom with it. He can manage this money profitably only in the strictest case, or he needs at the most some accounting assistants, who will receive from him, in comparison with his income, a very moderate salary, often hardly enough to satisfy their needs, especially if they have a family. [8] But no such money-owner can excuse himself with the way he has made the money, whether by speculation, by winning a lottery, or by inheritance. In any case, he stands before God like a receiver next to a thieve. How, you may ask? [9] What does becoming rich through lucky speculation means? That is, and means, nothing other than acquiring for himself the legitimate merit of many usuriously, thereby depriving many of the legitimate merit and appropriating it for himself. In this case, a man who has become rich through lucky speculation, is a barbarous thief. In lottery winnings, he is the same, because he acquires what is to be used by many, for himself. In the case of an inheritance, however, he is a stooge who also takes possession of the unlawful property of his ancestors, who could only claim it by the two aforementioned ways. CHAPTER 92 Usury, the most damnable before God [1] But one will say: This provision sounds strange; For what can the heir have for inheriting the property of either his parents or other wealthy relatives? Should he, in such a transfer, calculate the natural portion, take from the heir only as much as that portion, and then give the other part to whom? Or should he accept all this fortune, but accept only the part of nature which he deserves as his property, or manage the great surplus himself to support lazy idlers, or perhaps surrender such surplus to charity organizations, or the directors of charitable institutions? [2] This question is only worth a monosyllabic answer. Are the Divine law and the law of the state, or the Divine wisdom and care, and the secular state politics and so-called diplomacy, one and the same? What does the Lord say? He says: "Everything that is great in the world is an abomination before God! [3] But what is greater in the world than an usurped state power, which, viewed from the Divine side, never submits to the Divine counsel, but only to its secular state wisdom, which consists in politics and diplomacy; and uses their powers for their own exploitative and consumptive welfare? [4] But if it is abominable and disgraceful if any man deceives only one, two or three of his brothers, how much more abominable before God it must be when men know how to crown and anoint a man with all their might, and then under such coronation anointing, deceive entire peoples in all imaginable ways to their own revelry advantages, either by the so-called state wisdom, or, should it not do, then with cruel open force! [5] I think that from this little sentence, one can almost grasp the extent to which the rights of most of the present states handle their affairs counter to the Divine. I also think that when the Lord said to the rich youth: "Sell all your goods and distribute them among the poor, then follow Me, and you will prepare for yourself a treasure in heaven", hopefully this statement will suffice to learn what kind of distribution the earthly rich man, if he wants to reap the kingdom of God, should do with his wealth. If he does not do that, then he must ascribe it to himself when the same verdict which the Lord has pronounced over the young man who has become sad: that a camel would be able to get through the eye of a needle easier than would a rich man into the kingdom of heaven! Of course, the circumstance must be taken into account that the Lord here has pronounced such a highly regrettable judgment over a young man, who was also certainly an heir. [6] One might well ask: Why did "a rich young man" have to appear here, and why should not some old speculator have appeared before whom the Lord had made known His eternal displeasure with all earthly wealth? The answer is very close: the young man was not yet a diehard wealth manager, but he was still at the point where such a youth usually does not properly appreciate the earthly wealth yet. For just this reason he could at least approach the Lord for a short time in order to hear from him the right direction and the right use of his wealth. It is only when he realizes the Divine will, that he then falls away from the Lord and returns home to his riches. [7] So the youth had this privilege, as a youth who was not yet liable, to approach the Lord. But the already inveterate, old-aged rich landlord, speculator and usurer, stand as camels behind the eye of a needle, through which they would have to squeeze in order to reach the youth like the young man. So it is no longer granted to such a rich and given, like unto the young man, to meet the Lord. For these however, the Lord has unfortunately cited another very important example in the story of the "rich glutton." I do not need to tell you more. [8] But whoever of you can think only a little, will with the greatest ease find out that no human vice is as contemptible to the Lord of heaven and all worlds as wealth acquired through usury and its usual consequences. For no other vices do we see the Lord of life and death very clearly opening up the abyss of hell as with this one. [9] Be it manslaughter, adultery, harlotry and the like, in all this, no one on earth has seen the Lord condemning him to hell. But this sin of usury, He has punished with word and deed in the most urgent manner, both with the priesthood and with every other privileged classes! [10] Who can prove to the Lord, in the face of all other human offenses, that He has raised His almighty hand over such a sinner? But the money-changers, pigeon-merchants, and such kind of speculators, had to submit to being beaten and chastised with a tortuous rope from the temple by the omnipotent hand of the Lord Himself! [11] But do you know what that means? This true evangelical endeavor will say no more and no less than that the Lord in heaven and of all worlds is the greatest sworn enemy of this vice. In every other, His Divine love speaks of patience, forbearance, but over this vice, He pronounces His anger and wrath! [12] For here he hinders entrance to Him through the well-known eye of the needle, evidently opens up the abyss of hell, and shows in it a truly damned one, speaks up frightfully against the rule-hungry and greedy Pharisees, clearly showing them how fornicators, adulterers, thieves and other sinners are more likely to enter the kingdom of God than they. [13] Finally, He even takes a chastening weapon in the temple and ruthlessly drives out all the speculators of any kind and calls them murderers of the Divine kingdom, turning the temple, which represents the Divine kingdom, into a dungeon of murder. [14] We could cite several such examples from all those who could be inferred that the Lord is the supreme enemy of this vice. But for whoever is able to think reasonably, this will be enough. On this very occasion we may take a brief look at our ninth commandment, and we shall see from this view that the Lord has not limited the desire in any other human relation, nor in any other self-forbidden opportunity and activity, as in the case of this most detestable opportunistic usury. [15] Everywhere He expressly forbids only the activity, but here already the desire, because the danger which arises therefrom for the spirit is too great. It totally withdraws the spirit from God and turns him completely to hell. You can also see this from the fact that every other sinner feels repentance for a sinful deed, while the rich speculator celebrates and triumphs over a happy successful speculation! [16] This is the true triumph of hell, and the prince of hell, therefore, seeks by preference to foster in mankind in every possible way, love for the wealth of the world, because he knows that they are filled with this love, are most repugnant unto the Lord and that they receive the least mercy! - I do not need to tell you more about that. [17] For everyone who will heed these words deeply, because they are the eternal irrefutable Divine truth! And you can know it to be true and believe it, because not one syllable in it is too much, rather you can assume that there is far too little said. But everyone should remember this: the Lord will employ every possible means at every possible occasion, before he will let anyone perish, but against this vice, He will do nothing except open the abyss of hell, as He have said it in the gospel. All this is certain and true, and through this, we have come to know the true meaning of this commandment. And I say once more: Let everybody take what is said here to heart! - And now nothing more. Here is the tenth room, and so we enter it! CHAPTER 93 The tenth commandment in the tenth hall in the kingdom of the children [1] We are in it and see on the tablet written in clear font: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife!" [2] It hardly needs to be mentioned that this commandment here in the pure realm of the spirit, and especially in the realm of children, surely sounds a bit strange to every thinker. For the moment, these children do not know in the least what a married woman is, for instance, and secondly is marriage between the sexes absolutely not the norm or the way at all, especially in the realm of the children. In the kingdom of spirits does this commandment appear to have, according to this consideration, no application. [3] But it will be said: Why would the Lord not have given one out of ten commandments which corresponds only to earthly conditions? For on earth, the connection between man and woman is customary and is therefore an old-established relationship based on the Divine order, which without a commandment, cannot remain in the Divine order. So one can assume here that among the ten commandments, the Lord has given one merely for the maintenance of the order of an external, earthly relationship, so that by maintaining this order, a spiritual, inner, superior order is not disturbed. [4] Well, if that is so, then I say: this commandment is then nothing but a highly superfluous repetition of the sixth commandment, which in any case is quite the same. For even here, in its complete course, everything is represented as forbidden, which has only some relation to fornication, whoring, and adultery, both in the physical, and especially in the spiritual sense. [5] If we weigh this a little against each other, it follows that this commandment is not good for heaven, and that it is a superfluous addition to the sixth commandment. [6] But I already see someone saying: Ha! Dear friend, you are mistaken. This commandment, forbidding the very thing that is forbidden in and of itself, which is prohibited in the sixth commandment, is nevertheless quite peculiar to itself and higher and deeper than the sixth commandment. In the sixth commandment, evidently, only the real gross act is forbidden, but in this tenth, the desire, and the desire as the all-time root-cause for action. For one often see that especially young husbands usually have beautiful young wives. How easy it is for another man to forget his wife, who may not be beautiful, and to gape at the beautiful wife of his neighbor, awakening an ever greater urge and an ever greater desire for his neighbor's wife, and commit adultery with her. [7] Well, I say, looking at this commandment from this point of view, there are no more than a half-legion of ridiculous and foolish things, by which the Divine nature of such a sublime commandment gets dragged through the filthiest dust and the most stinking sludge of the worldly wits and minds of the people. For the sake of example and explanation, we will, of course, cite some ridiculousness, so that it will be clear to everyone how shallow and external this commandment was understood, explained, and acted upon, for over eight centuries. [8] A man should therefore have no desire for the wife of his neighbor. Here it can be asked: What kind of longing or desire? Because there are a lot of honest and well-tolerated longings and desires that a neighbor can address to the wife of his neighbor. But in the commandment it is absolutely necessary to have "no desire". As a result, only the two neighbors may be in conversation with each other, but each other's women should always be looked upon with contempt. This is no more and no less than an almost Turkish conception of this Mosaic commandment. [9] Further, if one considers the matter literally and materially, surely one must literally take everything literally, and not take a few words literally and a few words spiritually; which would be just the same as if someone would wear a pair of trousers with on one leg black and the other a very subtle transparent white leg. Or, as if to claim that a tree had to grow such that half of its trunk would appear with bark and the other with no bark. According to this consideration, the tenth commandment prohibits only the desire for the wife of the "neighbor". Who can that be in the literal sense? Nobody else but either the nearest neighbors or close blood relatives. Literally, therefore, one should have no desire only for the wives of these two neighbors; the wives of distant inhabitants of a district, and especially the wives of foreigners, who are certainly no neighbors, could be demanded without further ado. For such a person will understand without mathematics and geometry that in comparison to the nearest neighbor, one living a few hours away, or even a foreigner, cannot be reckoned for a neighbor or a close relative. See, that too is Turkish, because they hold this commandment only towards Turks, towards foreign nations, they have no law. - Let's proceed. [10] I ask: is the wife of my neighbor exempt from this attitude of the Divine law? For the law only states that a man should have no desire for the wife of his neighbor. But there is no syllable of the commandment that a randy woman should have no desire for her nearest neighbor. In this way, the women is evidently given a privilege to seduce the men they see without hesitation. And who will forbid them to do such a thing, since there is no commandment from the Lord in this case? That, too, is from Turkish philosophy; for the Turks know from the literal sense of the Bible that the women are free from such laws. Therefore, they lock them up so they cannot go outside and make other men lust after them. If a Turk permits a walkabout to one of his wives, she must make her appearance so unflattering, that she would even inspire respect in a bear. She is only allowed to show her charm in front of her husband. Who can raise an objection against it, as if such could not be recognized from the literal sense of this commandment? Obviously, this ridiculousness has its undeniable cause in the commandment itself. But let's go on. [11] Cannot the nearest neighbors have grown-up daughters or other pretty maids? According to the tenth commandment, is it lawful or not to have desire for the neighbor's daughters or other girls, even as a husband? Apparently, such is permitted, for in the sixth commandment, there is no talk of desire, but only of the act. But the tenth commandment only forbids the desire for the wife, so the desire for the daughters and any other pretty girls of the neighbor is permitted without argument. - Look; Here again we have a Turkish interpretation of the law. But in order to make the matter clear as daylight we want to cite a few such ridiculous things. CHAPTER 94 Who is the 'you' in the tenth commandment? [1] The law says: "Thou shalt not desire thy neighbor's wife." - Is not it possible to ask: Who is actually "you"? Is he a married man, a widower, an unmarried young man, a youth, or is it also a woman to whom one can also say: Thou shalt not do this or that? It will be said here that this is primarily intended for the male sex, regardless of whether single or married, and that women may incidentally also be included and should not have the right to entice and desire other men, all of that is self-evident. [2] But I say however: If men are even able to determine their statutes, and in their very statutes they make fine and clever dispositions for every possible case, then one cannot blame the Lord as if He had given inconclusive laws out of ignorance, or, like a cunning lawyer, He would have put his laws on paper as such that people would inevitably have to sin one way or the other. [3] I think that to come to such a conclusion at the closer consideration of this seemingly indefinite law, would be a bit gross. It is therefore much more feasible to conclude that this law, like all others, is a most definite one. It has been so distorted and misinterpreted over time, and especially in the period of the hierarchy that has arisen, that by now, no man knows the actual, true meaning of this law. And all that happened because of sheer greed. In the true sense of the word, this law would never have given a penny to the priesthood, but in its covert sense, it gave rise to all sorts of taxed mediations, dispensing, and divorces; and of course in the earlier days far more than now. For then it was the case that two or more neighbors could not protect themselves against the transgression of this law. How come? [4] Of course, they had to conscientiously confess several times a year, out of great fear of hell. Then they were diligently examined on this point, and even in the case of if some neighbour would give a beautiful young woman at the side of a neighbour even a thought, a glance, or even a conversation,it was explained to be an adulterous sin against this commandment, which was usually accompanied with a sacrificial penalty. If the approach was a little closer, condemnation was complete, and the one who had sunk down to Hell on the pair of balances of St. Michael had to throw very important sacrifices into the other empty scale, so that it would tip over again and pull the poor condemned sinner fortunately out of hell again. The priests who held the power of God are not among those who demand much, but they rather want everything in earnest! [5] In this way many very wealthy knights and counts once had to bite the bullet and, on top of that, as a remission from hell, bequeath their goods to the church. Their unfortunate wives were taken into a convent as atonement for the punishment of her unfaithful husband. Also the possible children both male and female were then usually divided into such monasteries, where one must possess no earthly riches. [6] I think that this should be enough to see all the really nasty things that came out of the distortion of this law. The indeterminate "you" of the law was the primary source of dispensing, which usually incorporated the most. If someone had made a great sacrifice, you could modify the "you", so that the sinner at least would not go to hell. On the contrary, however, this "you" could also be so damnably determined, by the presumed power of 'binding and loosing', that only very significant sacrifices could help the sinner in salvation from hell. [7] We have now seen to what aberrations the indefinite "you" gave opportunity. But let us not content ourselves with this, but consider some such ridiculous interpretations, so that it becomes all the clearer to everyone how necessary the acquaintance with the pure meaning of the law is, without which one can never become free, but must remain slavishly under the curse of the law! - And so we proceed! CHAPTER 95 Examples of wrong views of the tenth commandment [1] As the law says, we know that it prohibits a desire or longing. But now it comes to mind: some man is impoverished while his neighbor is a rich man. The wife of the neighbor, as the neighbor of our poor man, has, as he knows, a compassionate and benevolent heart. Our poor man evidently gets a longing for the benevolent wife of his neighbor, and desires to silence his hunger. Question, did he sin or not? He obviously had a desire and longing for the wife of his neighbor. But since it says: Thou shalt have no desire for the wife of thy neighbor, who can justifiably declare this reasonable desire of the poor as sinful? For under "no desire, no longing," surely every desire and every longing must be forbidden, since in the word "none" there allows no exception whatsoever. So, therefore, a desire of whatever kind must be forbidden. [2] Does not this make it seem as if the Lord thereby wished to divert the female sex from charity, according to which, then, every good deed that a housewife gives to a poor man, is to be regarded as a sin which completely runs counter to the Divine command? [3] But is it possible to think of such an absurd command coming from the supreme love of the Lord? It could be said here, of course, that the commandment is limited only to carnal, sensual desire. But I say: It is good, so if it should be thus, then just allow me to make some remarks. If these remarks kill the "should be thus", then every one of us must be content to take another course in determining this commandment. And so you hear the remarks. [4] The commandment should therefore only prohibit a sensual carnal desire. Good, I say, but ask: Is there a certain woman in the command, or are all the women included in the commandment, or are there certain natural exceptions? [5] Suppose several neighbors have old, no longer attractive women. We can be assured that these neighbors no longer have a carnal desire for both their wives. Accordingly, only the young women should be understood, and only if they are beautiful and charming. Surely even men who are old and full of days, will not be much tortured by carnal sensual desires towards whatever women of their neighbors. [6] From this, however, we see that this law is valid only under certain conditions. So the law has gaps and thus has no general validity. For where nature already makes exceptions and a law does not even have the full natural validity, how should it extend to the spiritual? If you cannot understand this, just break off a tree and see if it will then grow and bear fruit. [7] But a Divine law must surely be so constituted that its blissful validity is "lawful" for all eternity. If, however, in the course of the short earthly existence, it is naturally pushed beyond the applicable limits, and thus already ceases to be active in the natural state of man, what shall it then be for eternity? Is not every law of God founded in His infinite love? But what is it afterwards, when such a law is made invalid? Is this something different from what one might claim that Divine love, under certain circumstances, also ceases to be valid for man? [8] But this is also the basis of the sad faith of your pagan-Christian side, according to which the love of God lasts only as long as man lives in this world. Once he has died in his body and merely exists there in soul and spirit, the immutable, terribly strict, punitive angry righteousness of God takes immediate effect, in which there is no talk of everlasting love and mercy. [9] If man, through his way of life, deserves heaven, he will not go to heaven because of the Divine love, but only according to the Divine justice, of course, through his own good and pleasing mercy. But if man has not lived thus, eternal damnation is present immediately, from which salvation is never to be expected. In other words, man say that there is some stupid Father who has set up a law in His household against His children, which means: [10] I give complete freedom to all my children from birth until their seventh year. During this time you should enjoy all my love without distinction. After the seventh year, however, I withdraw my love from all the children and from then on I either want to judge you or make you happy. Those who, as minor children, have kept my heavy laws, from the seventh year onwards shall enjoy their highest pleasure. But those who, in the course of the seven years, have not completely improved one atom according to my great law, from now on are to be forever cursed and rejected from my, the father's, house. - Say, what would you say to such a cruel donkey of a father? Would not that be more than the most shameful tyranny of all tyrants? [11] But if you were to find such a man indescribably foolish, bad, and evil, how horribly nonsensical must those men be who can ascribe even far worse things to God, who is the Supreme Love and Wisdom Himself! [12] What did the Lord do on the cross as the sole Divine Wisdom, since, by manner of speech, He was as if separated from the eternal Love? He, as Wisdom, and as such the foundation of all righteousness, turned Himself to the Father or the eternal Love, not calling for just vengeance, but He implores Love to forgive all these abusers, including the high priests and Pharisees their deeds, for they did not know what they were doing! [13] So this is what Divine justice does for itself. Should the infinite Divine Love then begin to condemn where the Divine justice implores the still infinitely more merciful Love for mercy? [14] If one does not accept that the Lord was really serious in His request, and says that He has only done so as an example, does one not then make of the Lord a hypocrite, by only seeming make Him ask for forgiveness on the cross, but secretly man see in Him the irrepressible revenge, according to which He has long condemned all these evildoers to the most intense hellish fire? [15] O world! O people! O most terrible nonsense that could ever be conceived in all infinity and eternity! Is it possible to think of something more shameful than to make the Lord on the cross a liar, a false preacher, a traitor, and thus a universal con artist, for the false, though temporally lucrative, justification of hell? From whose mouth as alone from that of the arch-satan can such doctrine and words come? [16] I think it is enough here, too, to bring you to the realization of what abominations may come from a very wrong interpretation and exegesis of a Divine law. That it is all the same with you in the world, you can already grasp with your own hands. But why it is so, for what reason, you did not know and could not know; for this law's knot was too confused, and no one could ever fully loosen this knot. [17] Therefore, the Lord had mercy on you, and let you in the sun, since it is certainly light enough, announces to you the true solution of this knot, so that you may have insight into the general cause of all evil and darkness. [18] It will of course be said: Yes, how can so much evil depend on the misunderstanding of the Ten Commandments of Moses? [19] I think: Because these ten commandments are given by God and carry in themselves the whole infinite order of God Himself. [20] Therefore, whoever would step out of the Divine order in one point or another, no longer remains in the Divine because it is equal to a straight path. If somebody deviates from this path, can he say: I have deviated only a quarter, fifth, seventh or tenth of the way? Certainly not. For as he leaves the path in the least, he has already departed from the whole way. If he does not wish to return, it will certainly be possible to assert that the single point on the way, where the wanderer deviated from it, had removed the wanderer from the whole way. [21] And so it is with every single part of the Divine law. It will not be easy to find someone who would have terribly sinned against every law, as this almost impossible. But it is enough if someone would sin at a point and then insist. He thus departs from the whole law, and if he does not want it and the Lord does not want to help him, he would never return to the way of the law or the Divine order. And so you may also be assured that most of the evils of the world unfortunately probably originate from selfish and malicious misunderstanding, or rather from the malicious distortion of the meaning of these last two Divine commandments. [22] But we have now also sufficiently revealed the ridiculousness and false interpretations of this commandment; Therefore, let us proceed to the right meaning of this law, in which light you will all see these foolish things incomparably brighter enlightened. CHAPTER 96 Reason for concealment of the actual meaning of the tenth commandment [1] Here are some who have read the preceding saying: We are seriously curious about what this commandment has for a proper permanent purpose, since every sense we have previously attached to this commandment has irrevocably been drawn into the absurdly ridiculous as it was presented. We seriously would like to know who is the "you", and also, the wife? For out of this commandment, nothing can be established with certainty. "You" may well be anyone, but whether a woman can be understood by that is still uncertain. At best, the neighbor could be more closely defined, especially if one takes that word in a broader sense, whereby then anyone who needs our help is our neighbor. But the wife is causing the greatest dilemma; because one does not know if a married woman or a single person of the female gender is to be understood. Of course, it is written as singular and not the multiple; but that does not make the matter any more specific. For if one accepts polygamy in any part of the world, then obviously the simple number would have a new catch. For all this, we are all the more curious about the true meaning of this commandment, in that the literal sense is everywhere wholly inconsistent. [2] And I say: So it is certain and clear that with the assumption of the pure external sense of the letter, only the greatest nonsense can be represented, but never any established truth. [3] It will of course be said here: Yes, why did not the Lord immediately give the law so that it would not be obscure for everyone, but appear quite open in the sense it actually exist and how it can be observed in that very sense? [4] This objection, at first sounds rather wise; but considered in the light, it is so stupid that one cannot easily imagine something more stupid. But for all to easily see the extraordinary absurdity of this objection, as if one would stand only a few miles away from the sun, and then suddenly see it up close - or like one who cannot see the forest for the trees, so I will make some natural, very brief observations for this occasion. [5] Let us suppose that a so-called naturalist and botanist would like to ask for the convenience of his investigation: Why did not the creative power of the highest Creator create the trees and plants in such a way that the inner core is outside and the bark inside? It would be easy to observe the rising of the juice into the branches and twigs and their reactions and other effects with a microscope? For it cannot have been the intention of the Creator to put the thinking man on earth in such a position that he should never penetrate into the mystery of the miraculous effects of nature. - What do you say to this desire? Is not it extremely stupid? [6] Suppose, however, that the Lord could be bribed by such a request and thus turn the trees and the plants inside out - will not other naturalists come in immediately and say: What good is the consideration of the external core, if we cannot discover the wonderful formation of the inner bark? What follows from this? The Lord would have to submit Himself again now and fix the bark and the core on the outside of the tree in an incomprehensible way. Suppose, however, that the Lord had really done so and the interior of the tree consists now only of wood. Will not another naturalist at once announce a new need and say: Because the bark on the one side and the core on the other, all the wonderful formation of the wood is now concealed. Could not a tree be designed so that everything, core, wood and bark were exposed or at least be as transparent as the air? [7] Whether one can make a tree with all of its countless many necessary organs as transparent as air or at least as pure as water is what opticians and mathematicians should decide. By the way, whether any fruit will grow on perfectly airy trees, may be experienced in the regions of the North Pole or South Pole. For there are sometimes such phenomena that, as in the winter, crystalline ice-trees burst open on the glass windows in the way you do in the winter, but there, in the air. Whether figs and dates appear on these trees, has not yet been determined. [8] With regard to the trees, where everything, core, wood, and bark, should be exposed, you can be perfectly assured that it would be just as easy to make a square ball as such a tree. I think that by this consideration, the stupidity of the above objection should be as clear as the sun before the eyes. But to make the matter, as usual, really excessive, let's add a few more considerations. [9] Let us suppose that when a doctor who has to study a great deal, and has already swallowed a whole heavy cart full of erudition like a polyp, is called to a dreadfully ill patient, he is often at the sickbed, like a pair of newly-tethered oxen on a steep mountain. The doctor is asked by the bystanders: How do you find the patient, what is wrong with him? Will he be able to help? [10] At these questions the doctor makes a scholarly, but still very questionable embarrassed face and says: My dears! Nothing can yet be determined; I must first proof the illness with a medicine. If there are any reactions, I'll know what to think about it. But if no reactions occur here, then you must realize for yourself that someone cannot look into our bodies to find out the location of the disease and its condition. [11] But somebody says somewhat laconically: Mister Doctor, our Lord God would have done better if He had created man like the carpenter does a cabinet that you can unlock and see what is inside. Or the Creator should have placed the more delicate parts, which can be so difficult to reach by means of the fingers, ears, eyes, and nose outside, so that this part can be easily helped with a plaster, an ointment, or with an bandage. But it would be best if He had either created man transparent as the water or He should not have made him with such life-endangering parts, but should have made him overall more like a stone. [12] The doctor wrinkles his nose a little, but still speaks: Yes, my dear friend, that would be good and better, but it is not the way you just expressed your wish. So we have to be content with it, if we are only able to depend on experience regarding the inner state of health and illness of a person by means of experience. For if man were also to open like a box, it would be much more perilous for every human being than it is, because only one little awkward grasp on the inside could instantly take a life. And if one were also able to inspect the entrails through such an opening, that would be of little use. The intestines and their fine organs would have to remain closed since all vital juices and every life activity would cease at the opening of the organ. But as far as the external positioning of the internal parts of the body is concerned, my dear, that would give the human form a most unattractive sight. And if the human being were completely transparent, each would be frightened of the other, for he would simultaneously see the skin-man, the muscular man, the vascular man, the nerve-man, and finally the bone-man. That such a sight would not be inviting, you can imagine for yourself. [13] I think that in this consideration, the foolishness of the above objection will be more obvious to you. [14] But there is someone else who speaks: It is, of course, absurd to think of natural, material things, that their internal things should at the same time make up their appearance. But the word in itself is neither a tree, nor an animal, nor a human, but it is in and of itself spiritual, in that it bears nothing material in itself. Why should it be like a tree or humans, or any incomprehensible inner meaning? Or how should this be possible considering the already extraordinary simplicity and flatness of the word? [15] Well, I say, let's take the word "father". What does it mean? Is the word already the father himself, or does the word signify a truly essential father, of whom this word is merely an external feature type? It will be said: Obviously here the word is not the father himself, but only an external designation of it. Well, but then I ask: What then must one understand under the word, so that one recognizes this word as an external, correctly identifying type? Answer: The word must be a man of an appropriate age, married, having produced living children with his wife, and then truly caring for them physically and spiritually. [16] Who can deny in the least that this rather stretched and exceedingly essential meaning must be contained in the simple word "father," without which this word would not be a word? [17] But even if in external relations every simple word must permit a more inward explanation and dissection, how much more must each external word have an internal spiritual sense, for everything which is signified by external words, has in itself an inward spiritual power and activity. A father certainly has a soul and spirit. Will the word properly describe the term "father" if it excludes the soul and the spirit? Certainly not, for the essential Father consists of body, soul and spirit, that is to say, something external, internal and deep internal. If, then, the essential Father is thus alive, then must not the word indicating the father, just as perfectly reflect as in a mirror in the Word, the Father in its essence? [18] I think that a necessary inner sense of the word cannot be represented more completely and clearly. From this, however, it can also be seen that the Lord, if He manifests His will in the world, cannot announce it to external people according to His eternal Divine order, except only through external, pictorial representations, which then is obviously supported by an internal one and an innermost sense. Through this, then, the whole man is supplied with Divine love from his inward to his utmost. [19] But now that we have more than demonstrated the necessity and the certainty of such an institution, it will be an easy matter to find the inner, true meaning of our law almost by itself; and as it is portrayed by me, at least to recognize the incontrovertible, the only true and universal. - And so we go straight to such a presentation! CHAPTER 97 The inner, self-evident meaning of the tenth commandment [1] The law therefore reads, as we already know it by heart: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," or: Thou shalt have no desire for thy neighbor's wife, which is one and the same thing. - Who is "the woman" and who is the "neighbor"? [2] The woman is the love of every man, and the neighbor is every man with whom I come into contact wherever, who is possibly in need of my help. If we know that, we basically know everything. [3] What does the commandment therefore say? Nothing other than: Every human being should not demand the love of his neighbor for his own good; for self-love is in and of itself nothing else than to attract the love of the other for one's own enjoyment, but not having one spark of love to give back to him. [4] This is then the law in its spiritual sense. But one says: [5] Here it is evidently reproduced in the sense of the letter, which one might have pronounced in the beginning just as well as now, whereby many aberrations would have been prevented. - But I say: That's correct, though. If one splits a tree in the middle, the core also comes out, and one can look at it just as easily as you could the bark before. [6] The Lord, however, has diligently veiled the inner sense in an outer, natural picture, so that this sacred, inward, living sense should not be attacked and destroyed by any malevolent man, whereby then all the heavens and worlds could be brought to the greatest harm. For this reason, the Lord also said: "Before the great and mighty wise men of the world, it shall remain hidden, and be revealed only to the small, the weak, and the underaged. [7] This principle is already prevalent in the things of nature. Suppose that the Lord created the trees so that their core and their main organs of life would be at the outside of the trunk? Say you yourselves, how many dangers would a tree be exposed to, every second? [8] You know, if you deliberately or wantonly pierce a tree's inner core, it's done with the tree. If any evil worm gnaws through the main trunk root, which is in close contact with the core of the tree, the tree dies. Who is not familiar with the malicious so-called "bark beetle"? What does he do to the trees? He gnaws first on the wood and eats here and there into the main organs of the tree and the tree dies. If, in this already well-guarded manner, the tree is still exposed to so many dangers of life, to what extent would he be exposed if his essential life-organs would be at the outside of the trunk? [9] See, it is just the same and unspeakably worse with the word of the Lord. If the inner meaning would be exposed at the outset, then there would have been already for a long time no religion among men. They would have gnawed and clawed at this inner, holy meaning of their lives as if on the outer bark of the tree of life. The inner holy city of God would have been a long time ago so thoroughly destroyed that no stone would have remained on the other, as they did with the old Jerusalem, and as they did it with the outer words, which only exist in the literal sense. [10] For the word of God in its outward, literal sense as you have it in the Holy Scriptures before you, is so very much different from the original text, as today's most wretched city of Jerusalem is different from the ancient cosmopolitan city of Jerusalem. [11] All this displacement and fragmentation, and also abbreviation only in the external sense of the letter, is not detrimental to the inner sense, because the Lord, through His wise providence, has created His order since eternity as such, that one and the same spiritual truth would stay preserved undamaged among a great variety of external images. [12] But the case would be quite different if the Lord had at once given the naked inner spiritual truth without a protective outer covering. They would have destroyed this holy, living truth and destroyed it at their discretion, and it would have been done with all life. [13] But because the inner sense is so obscured that the world can never possibly find it, life remains secure, even though its outer garment is torn into pieces. And so, of course, the inner sense of the word sounds when it is revealed, as if it were equal to the external sense of the word, and can also be expressed by articulated sounds or words. But that does not confuse the issue in the least. For this reason, the inner, living, spiritual sense nevertheless remains, and is recognizable in that it embraces the whole Divine order, while the picture containing it, expresses only a special relationship which, as we have seen, can never have one general meaning. [14] But just as the commandment just described in the picture, is but an external envelope, and how the inner sense now announced to you is a truly inner, spiritual, and living one, I would like to clearly explain to you with a small reflection. [15] The outer pictorial commandment is known; inwardly it says: Have no desire for the love of your brother or sister! [16] Why is this content and vital commandment here wrapped in the image of the not to be desired woman? [17] On this occasion, I only call your attention to a saying of the Lord Himself, in which He expresses Himself about the love of man for a woman, since He speaks: "So a son will leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife". [18] What does the Lord mean by this? Nothing else than man's most powerful love in this world is that for his wife. For what does man in his order love more in the world than his dear, good, honest wife? In the woman, therefore, the whole love of the man is contained, just as, conversely, the woman in her order certainly loves nothing more powerfully than the man who corresponds to her heart. [19] Thus, in this commandment, under the image of the woman, the whole love of the man or of man is in general set, because the woman is in earnest nothing but an outer, tender covering of the love of the man. [20] Who can escape the explanation that under the picture, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife", as much is said as: you shall not demand to your own advantage the love of your neighbor, and all other loves, because the world as wife also includes the whole love of man in itself. [21] If you would consider it with more detail, you will even grasp it with your hands, that all the outer, known vagueness of the external pictorial law are nothing but pure inner general determinations. How, we shall soon see. [22] See, the "you" is indefinite. Why? Because in the internal sense, "everyone" is understood, regardless of male or female gender. Likewise, the woman is indefinite, for it is not said whether an old or a young, whether one or more, whether a girl or a widow. Why then indefinite? Because the love of man is only one, and is neither an old nor a young woman, nor a widow, nor a single girl, but she, as love, is singular in each man. For this, the neighbor should have no desire, because it is each person's own life. Anyone who has an arrogant, envious, or avaricious desire for this love, is as a murderer of his neighbor, seeking to seize upon his life or love to his advantage. So the neighbor is indefinite too. Why? Because in the spiritual sense, "everyone" is understood, without distinction of gender. [23] I think it should be quite clear to you that the inner sense that I have shown you is the only right one, for it encompasses everything. [24] There may be some who, boasting from their lunar quarter-light, may object and say, If this is the case, then it is not a sin for anyone to tempt or long after their neighbor's wife or daughter. I say: Oh, my dear friend! With this assumption you have strongly lost your way into the blue. Under the fact that you should not desire the love of your neighbor, and indeed all his love, is not understood among "all that he carries as a life duty" in his heart? Behold, therefore, not only the wife and the daughters of your neighbor in the commandment are deprived of your desire, but everything that is embraced by your brother's love. [25] For this reason, the two last commandments were initially given as one commandment. They are only distinguished by the fact that in the ninth commandment, the love of the neighbor is more singularly to be respected, but in the tenth commandment the very same is given in the most inward sense, representing the observation of respect in general terms. [26] That therefore also the desire of the wife and the daughters of the neighbor is forbidden, surely every man can reach with his hands. It is the same than if you give someone a whole ox, you also give its extremities - the tail, horns, ears, feet and so on. Or if the Lord would give a world to someone, then he will give him everything that is on the same and not say: Only the inside of the world is yours, but the surface is Mine. [27] I think the matter cannot be made more clear to the understanding of man. We have now fully acquainted ourselves with the inner, true meaning of this commandment, as it is eternally valid in all the heavens and conditions the bliss of all angels, and we have met every possible objection. So we're done with that and want to go straight to the eleventh illuminated hall in front of us. There we shall find everything that has been said so far in the clearest light, summarised and confirmed in one point. - So we enter! CHAPTER 98 The Eleventh Commandment in the Eleventh Hall - The Love unto God [1] We are already in this hall, and here in the middle of the hall, we also see a round tablet on a large, white, shiny pillar. It shines like the sun, and in its center is written in ruby-red writing: [2] You shall love God your Lord above all, with all your mind and with all your life forces bestowed you by God. [3] In addition to this meaning-laden, beautiful solar tablet, we see, more than the usual number than in the other halls, of already grown children who, as you may notice, soon look at the table, then talk with their teachers again, and then soon become absorbed in themselves, their hands crosswise over their chests, standing like statues. The whole scene already implies that this is something extraordinarily important. [4] Some may perhaps ask and say: Such would probably be expected. But if one looks at the matter in the correct light, then this commandment written on the solar tablet will say nothing other than what all the previous commandments have basically said together. Why, then, does this tablet here have to shine, while all the preceding ten tablets were simply white and, as usual, described with a dark substance? - This remark is not without content. Nevertheless, it loses its value here, just as all other doctrines and claims against a single word from the mouth of the Lord must necessarily lose their appearance. [5] It is the same situation as is authenticated every single day in the world in the great nature. Suppose how many thousands and thousands of thousands of smaller and sometimes stronger and slightly larger lights shine down from the high heavens to the dark earth every night. The moon itself is often active throughout the night. In addition to these beautiful lights, at night, people on Earth light almost as many artificial lights. [6] With this abundance of lights upon lights, one would think that at nighttime on earth, it would be impossible to bear the light. But experience has always shown that on the earth, after each sunset, it becomes darker as the sun sinks below the horizon, despite the ever-increasing number of lights in the sky. [7] Who can say these lights are not gorgeous? Yes, a mediocre admirer of the wonders of God must, at the sight of the starry sky at night, beat the breast and say: O Lord, I am not worthy to walk in this Your sanctuary, in this infinite temple of Your omnipotence! Yes indeed, one can rightfully exclaim every night: O Lord! Who looks at Your works, experience a vain desire for it! [8] Why then vain? Because every human being has reason enough for himself, out of sheer pleasure and bliss, to be piously vain because He who created such marvels, is his Father!! Thus, everyone has, as it were, a sacred right to rejoice when, one more night, he looks at the great wonders of his Almighty Father. And indeed, the flame of a lamp, and that of the hearth, is no less a miracle of the almighty Father than the glorious radiance of the countless stars of the heavens! [9] And look now, all of this marvelous admirable splendor is like the Old Testament word in all its parts. [10] We see a barely countable amount of larger and smaller lights in this old nocturnal sky. They radiate splendidly, and whoever looks at them is always filled with a secret, holy reverence. Why? Because his spirit suspects great things behind these lights. But they are still too far away from him. He can look and grab and feel, but the little lights with their great content do not want to move closer to his inquiring spirit. [11] But who are these heavenly lights in the old heaven of the spirit? [12] See, it is all the patriarchs, fathers, prophets, teachers, and leaders of the people who are known to you by the Spirit of God. - But on earth there are also a lot of artificial lights, who are they supposed to be in the Old Testament? These are the worthy people who faithfully lived according to the words that came from the God-saturated men, who throughout their lives enlightened and refreshed their neighbors. [13] So we have this wonderful night scene in front of us. It is true that the nocturnal local storms occasionally obscure the rays of the sky, with clouds drifting rapidly away. But the same storm that once brought a fiery cloud over the glorious star-spangled sky, exactly this storm drives this cloud away over the horizon, and after him the firmament becomes purer than it was before. Everything becomes fearful at such a short-lasting storm and wishes again for the quiet, glorious night, illuminated by so many thousands of lights. But a naturalist speaks: Such storms are nothing but ordinary harbingers of the day, so one should not be afraid. [14] So it is true. For where large forces are set in motion, one can rightly conclude and say: Here an even greater, even the greatest primordial force cannot be far away, for these lesser winds are nothing but side streams of a not-so-distant great hurricane. So our naturalist is right and we are still refreshed by the wonderful splendor of the miracle night. [15] Like lovers we swarm around under the many windows of the big, magnificent house, and look with imaginative and longing chests up to the light-filled openings of the house, dimly lit by a night lamp, behind which we sense the object of our love. [16] Many fantasies, a thousand content-heavy thoughts twitch like shooting stars over our love-heaven, but no such fleeting ephemeral light will suffice to satisfy the thirst of our love. [17] As such do people wander in the old night sky of the spirit. But what happens? At the rising of the sun the horizon begins to redden. It gets brighter and brighter over the horizon of the rising. Another glimpse of the once so beautiful sky, and what do you see? - Nothing but the disappearance of one star after the other. [18] The sun, the glorious one, rises with its primeval daylight, and no star in the sky is visible anymore, for the one sun has enlightened every heavenly atom with its singular light, which at night all those innumerable stars together could not manage to do. [19] For the tarrying lover, who had raved in vain all through the night, one window of the for him very meaningful house opens, and from this one window the longed-for object of his heart greets him, and tells him with a benevolent glance, more than all his innumerable fantasies and thoughts during the night! [20] Thus we see every day in the great nature, a scene that corresponds perfectly to our spirituality. [21] The moon, like Moses, we see with diminishing and pale light dipping behind the evening mountains, when the mighty sun rises in the morning over the horizon. Whatever had been shrouded in the night in the most mysterious darkness, is now brightly lit before everyone's eyes! [22] All this is the effect of the sun. And in the spiritual heaven, it is all the effect of the One Lord, the One Jesus, who is the only One God of heaven and of all worlds! [23] What He Himself is in Himself as the Divine sun of all suns, that is also every single word spoken out of His mouth against all countless words from the mouth of enthusiastic patriarchs, fathers and prophets. Countless exhortations, laws and regulations we see in the course of the Old Testament. These are stars and also artificial lights of the night. But then the Lord comes, speaks only one word - and this word outweighs the whole Old Testament. [24] And, for that very reason, this first word appears here in this eleventh hall as a self-luminous sun, whose light illuminates innumerable stars, but it never lasts forever to make use of the counter-reflection of the stars. For it is the primeval light from which all the countless stars have taken their partial light. [25] And so it will certainly be understandable here, too, why the former ten erected tablets are only white, that is with a dull shimmer, whereas here we see the primordial sunlight, which requires no pre-light and no after-light, but it is all light in itself. [26] Whoever takes this to heart to a certain extent will fully understand why the Lord has said, "In this commandment of love are Moses and all the prophets." It is certainly as much as said, as one would of course like to say: In the daylight, therefore, one no longer sees the stars and no longer needs their light, because all their light gets completely overpowered by the single light of the sun. But how through this here the full truth presents itself palpably, you will see in the sequel. CHAPTER 99 Love of God as the primordial material of all creatures [1] The love of God is the primitive substance of all creatures, for without them nothing could ever have been created. This love corresponds to the all-enlivening and generating warmth, and only through this warmth do you see the earth become green under your feet. [2] Through heat, the rigid tree becomes leafy, flowering, and the warmth in its essence is what ripens the fruit on the tree. There is no creature or thing on the earth's surface at all which could take its origin in the total lack of heat. [3] It will be said and argued that ice surely lacks all warmth, and especially the polar ice. With that, the heat will not be able to do much, because at near forty degrees below zero, one would like to know the heat measuring instrument that could measure some heat there. But I say nothing else than that the scholars of this earth have not yet invented an instrument with which they are able to discern the actual heat from the actual cold matter and precisely determine it. With us, who are in the inner pure knowledge, a completely different measure is introduced and in use. [4] The scientists of the earth begin with the measurement of cold, where water freezes. If at freezing point the actual cold begins, then I would like to know the reason, according to which laws or in which way cold then can increase? Why is a temperature of about four to five degrees below the so-called ice-point still tolerably bearable? But when the thermometer has dropped to eighteen degrees below, everyone will feel the cold very painfully. One cannot say with full rights here: Eighteen degrees of cold are therefore more sensitive than four degrees, because at four degrees, apparently more heat than at eighteen degrees prevails. Can one now accept eighteen degrees as complete coldness? Oh no, because you've already experienced thirty degrees of coldness. This was even more painful than the eighteen-degree one. Why? Because it contained far less heat than eighteen degrees. But forty degrees will be even more painful than thirty. But is it therefore justified to declare the forty degrees as completely void of heat? [5] But I want to tell you that this is nothing but transitions from heat to cold, and vice versa. Therefore one can accept this much more correct scale: [6] Every thing, every body that can still be heated, cannot be called completely cold, for the amount of heat it is capable to absorb, corresponds with its size and density. A lump of ice from the highest north can be melted by the fire and the water brought to boiling point. If this ice had no inherent heat, it could never be heated. [7] Cold is therefore the property of a being in which there is no longer any warming capacity. Thus, one can justifiably attribute the formation of ice on the North Pole solely to the reaction of heat, where it is threatened by the cold, seizing, contracting and solidifying its bodies so that they can resist the actual cold. [8] Warmth is therefore equal to love, but the real cold is like the real hellish lovelessness. Wherever it wants to appear ruling, the all-enlivening and sustaining love arms itself against her, and the real cold, which kills everything, cannot win any victory from the love thus armed. [9] After that, what does "love God above everything" mean? Of course, it cannot possibly mean something other than: [10] Combine your God-given warmth of life with the original creative and preserving warmth of your Creator, and you will never lose your life. [11] But if you want to voluntarily separate your love or your warmth of life from the Divine primordial warmth of life, and want to exist as an independently ruling being, your warmth will have no more sustenance. [12] You will thereby move into an ever greater degree of cold. And the deeper you go down into the ever more powerful, colder degrees, the harder it will be to warm you up again. But if you have gone into the perfect cold, then you have fallen completely prey to Satan, where you are so cold that no more warming is possible! [13] What then would happen to you, no angel of the heaven would know one syllable to tell you. [14] In God, of course, are infinite depths. But who will be able to fathom these and keep his life? [15] I think that from this short discussion, one can already quite clearly begin to form an idea of why this commandment, this one word of the Lord, is the epitome, indeed a sun of all suns and a word of all words. In the following instance, we want to talk more about it. CHAPTER 100 What does it mean to love God above all else? [1] I see one who comes and speaks: It would be all right, but how should one realize this one Divine word to God Himself? How could one truly love God, and above all else? Should one be so in love with God as a young bridegroom with his beautiful and rich bride? Or should one be in love with God, like a mathematician with a mathematical calculation or an astronomer with his stars? Or should one be in love like a speculator with his commodity, or a capitalist with his money, or a sovereign with his dominions, or even like a ruling monarch with his throne? These are the only possible standards of serious human love, for the children's love of their parents cannot be properly established as a serious measure of love, as the example teaches that children can leave their parents to either build a good marriage or to gain much money or to take a high honorary position. With all this, the love of the children returns to their parents and must necessarily take a more powerful place. Therefore, only the most powerful standards of human love are given here, and then it is asked, by which one should one actually measure the love of God? [2] But if somebody comes and says: Like this or that, I say: friend! That cannot be. [3] It is true that the most powerful measures of love I have quoted are probably the only ones according to which man's greatest power of love can be measured; but when it is said that one should love God above all, that wants to say as much as: more than anything in the world. [4] So, how does one begin to raise love unto a power of which no human spirit can form any measurable or comparable concept? One will say, for example, that one should love God even more than his own life. Here I say in objection: With the love of one's own life, the highest love for God holds out even less of a comparison than with the love of the children for their parents. Because it is already well known that the children do not risk their lives out of love for their parents; on the contrary, they expect of the parents to fight for them for life and death. [5] The self-love of children is usually far more powerful than their love towards their parents. But we see, on the other hand, that the children of men often put their lives on the line for the sake of other benefits. One is sailing across the ocean on stormy nights, another is facing the line of fire of the enemy's army, and a third often goes to the unstable abysses of the earth to fetch metallic treasures. And so we see that these external worldly-earnest standards of human love are certainly stronger and have a more general applicability than children's love for their parents and the love of their own lives. [6] But of what use are all these standards, if far above them, the love for God should stand on such a level, against which all other love measures should sink back into pure nothingness? See, my dear friends and brothers, our objector has attacked us sharply, and we will have to stand up with much vigor in order to win against the opponent's overweight. [7] But I just see a very serious-looking opponent again. This one is sure of his victory and says: Oh, we will deal with this objector soon, because the Lord has even given us the explicit standard of how to love God. Therefore, I need say nothing other than what the Lord Himself has said, namely, "He who keeps my commandments, it is he who loves Me." - This is the actual measure of how to love God. [8] If the objector has enough sharp and strong teeth, he should still try to set up some other unbeatable measure. Good, I say, the objector is still around and makes an effort to bite the bit with this objection. So we want to listen to him and see what he's going to say. He speaks: [9] Good, my dear, friendly opponent! In the presentation of your objection, you have shown to me according to your measure of the highest love of God, nothing but that you have a fairly good memory, by quoting so many texts from the Holy Scriptures. But see, whoever wants to receive life from all the texts, not only has to know them, but should also be able to vividly perceive their meaning. [10] What would you say, if I spoke to you from the mouth of the Lord Himself, not just one, but several objections to it, according to which the Lord Himself presents the love from the fulfillment of the law as insufficient? Although you make a face now, as if you want to say: Such texts should probably be sparsely scattered in Scripture. But I say to you: Dear friend, not at all. Just listen to me, I want to bring you half a dozen, if you want it. [11] Are you aware of the Lord's talk with the rich youth? Does not he ask: "Master, what shall I do to win eternal life?" What does the Lord answer? You speak triumphantly: The Lord says, "Keep the commandments and love God, and you will live!" Good, I say, but what does the youth say? He says, "Master, I have kept that since my childhood." [12] That’s all right. But why, I ask, did the boy give this answer to the Lord? He wanted to tell him this: Although you have kept all this from your childhood, you still feel nothing of the wonderful eternal life in Me. [13] Why does the Lord then not explain to the youth the attitude of the commandments for the attainment of eternal life as sufficient, but at once makes a very tremendous addition, saying, "So sell all your goods, distribute them among the poor, and follow Me! [14] Question, if the Lord thus makes such an addition, are the observation of the laws then the highest love for God? See, there's a catch, but let's move on! [15] What does the Lord say to His apostles and disciples when He introduces and preaches to them the duties to be fulfilled? He speaks nothing but the simple, very meaningful words: "But if you have done all things, confess that you are lazy and useless servants. [16] I ask you now: does the Lord here explain the obedience to the commandments as sufficient, while He evidently declares that every man who completely fulfills the law should consider himself completely useless? See, there is already a second, even greater problem. But let us continue! [17] Do you know the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector in the temple? The Pharisee joyfully gives himself the faithful testimony before the sanctuary, that he, unlike many others, has fully fulfilled the law of Moses in all its aspects. The poor publican in a remote corner of the temple, by his immensely humble position, faithfully shows to every observer that he did not manage to fulfill the conditions of the Mosaic Law, for he dare not even to look up to the sanctuary of God due to his many sins, but confesses even its worthlessness before God and pleads for mercy and grace. [18] Surely I would like to know about you, my dear literal friend, why, if the law is sufficient, the Lord here lets the Pharisee, who strictly observe the whole law, stay unjustified and lets the poor, sinful publican go from the temple justified? [19] See, if you look at this in the right light, it seems as if the Lord Himself has created a third great problem with the strict observance of the law. You now shrug and do not know what you should make of it. Do not worry about it, it does become even better! So just continue. [20] What would you say, if I would quote to you from the Scriptures, and indeed from the mouth of the Lord Himself, a text according to which He indirectly invalidates the whole law and sets for it a completely different aid, through which He alone guarantees the acquisition of eternal life? [21] You speak now: Good friend, I also want to hear this text. Shall have him soon, my dear friend! What does the Lord say when He found a child by the wayside, picked him up, pressed him to His heart and cuddled him? He says: "If you do not become like this child, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven!" [22] Question: Did this child, who had barely spoken a few words, ever study the laws of Moses and then strictly arranged his life accordingly? There is no person in the world so stupid who could say that. Question: How could the Lord here, as the supreme motive for the gaining of eternal life, designate a child who had never dealt with the law of Moses ever before? Friend, I'll say nothing more than this: try to raise an objection against this. You are silent. So I see that with your lineup you have already retreated quite low into the background with this fourth problem. CHAPTER 101 What is the love unto God? [1] You have seen in these four points that the Lord, on the one hand, does not present the sole obedience to the law for the attainment of actual eternal life as sufficient and, in the fourth point, even indirectly abolishes it. [2] But what would you say, if I would like to give you a few instances where the Lord even spoke rebukingly of the observance of the law? You say here: That will probably not be possible! For that, I can offer you not just one, but, as you wish, several examples. Hear! [3] Anyone who has studied the Mosaic Law only to some degree must know how much Moses commanded hospitality to the Jewish people. Those who turned against hospitality were declared worthy of punishment before God and before men. The law of hospitality was all the more intensified for the Jewish people, who were very prone to greed, in order to protect this people from self-love and greed, and to lead them to charity. [4] The law, therefore, was to receive and serve a foreign guest with all attentiveness, especially if he belonged to the Jewish nation; and this law was from God; for God, not Moses, was the Lawgiver. [5] But when the very same Lord, who had once given the laws through Moses, comes to Bethania in the house of Lazarus, Martha is law-abiding and offers all her strength to serve this most worthy guest with due respect. Mary, her sister, forgets about the law out of sheer joy in the exalted guest, sits down idly at His feet and listens with the utmost attention to the stories and parables of the Lord. Martha, somewhat aroused by her sister's inaction and oblivion of the law on this occasion, turns herself eagerly to the Lord and says, "Lord! I have so much to do, would you bid my sister to help me a little! "Or, more clearly, Master, You, the Founder of the Mosaic Law, do remind my sister to be obedient. [6] What is the Lord talking about here? "Martha, Martha!" He says, "you're worried about worldliness! Mary has chosen the better part, which will never be taken from her. [7] Tell me now, my dear friend, whether this is not an obvious censure of the Lord against the zealous and exact observance of the law, but, on the contrary, an extraordinary commendation of the person who, to a certain extent, does not care about the whole law, but rather says through her actions (Maria): [8] Lord, if I only have You, the whole world is not worth a stater to me! Does the Lord not here again show that the observance of the law alone does not give anyone the better, even the best part, which would never be taken from him? See, that is a fifth problem. But go on! [9] What does the Lord Himself say to Moses, in the third commandment, "Thou shalt sanctify the Sabbath"? Question, what does the Lord Himself do in the face of His literal fulfillers of the law? See, He goes forth and desecrates the Sabbath Himself, apparently according to the literal sense of the law, and even allows His disciples to reap ears of corn on a sabbath day, and to fill themselves with the grains. How do you like this observance of the law of Moses, where the Lord Himself, as it were, does not only desecrate the whole Sabbath only for Himself, but to the greatest annoyance of the literal law-enforcers? You will say that the Lord could do that, because He is also a Lord of the Sabbath. [10] Good, but I ask: Did the angry Pharisees know that the carpenter's son was Lord of the Sabbath? - You think they should have recognized His miracles. But then I say: marvels were not enough for these people to discern the perfect divinity in Christ, for all the prophets worked miracles at all times, the true as well as sometimes the false ones. One cannot therefore assume that the miracles of Christ should have convinced the Pharisees of His Divinity and glory. [11] But all the prophets, except for Him, sanctified the Sabbath. He alone overthrew it. Would that not have been a nuisance to the literal law-abiders? Certainly, and yet the Lord did not stop with His activity. [12] But what does it mean? Nothing other than that the Lord sets the observance of the law only at the very bottom. Why? A little parable out of your own sphere, as of the sphere of every man who has ever lived in the world, is to bring you the answer: [13] A father has two children. He has announced his will as law to these children. He showed them a field and vineyard and said, "You have become strong, and so I demand of you that you diligently work for me in the vineyard and the field. From your work I will know which of you loves me the most." Well, that is the law, according to which, of course, to the son who loves the Father most, would be given more glory by the Father. [14] But what are the two sons doing? The one takes the spade and persistently tills the earth all day long and orders the field and the vineyard. The other one is working at his leisure, as one would say. Why? He says: When I am in the field or in the vineyard, I must always miss my dear father, besides, I am not as glory-hungry as my brother. If only I have my dear father, if I can only be around him, who is everything in my heart, I do not ask for much or for one or the other allotment of glory. [15] The father also says from time to time to his second son: but see how your brother works diligently and seeks to earn my love. But the son says, O dear father! When I am in the field, I am far from you, and my heart does not give me rest, but always speaks aloud to me: Love does not live in the hand, but in the heart, therefore it does not want to do it with the hand, but want to be earned by the heart. Give, father, my brother, who works so diligently the field and the vineyard. But I am sufficiently provided for by you, if you will only allow me to love you to my heart's content at all times, as I want and must love you, because you are my father, my all. [16] What will the Father then say, and that from the innermost depth of his heart? Certainly nothing other than: [17] Yes, my dearest son, you have revealed your heart to me; the law is just a test. But my son, love, is not in the law, for everyone who keeps the law alone keeps it out of self-love in order to earn his love and glory with his energy. But the one who keeps the law is still far from My love, because his love attached to Me, but to the reward. [18] But because you have turned back, you did not disdain the law, because your father gave it, but you have risen above the law, and your love has led you back to your father. So then your brother should come over the field and the vineyard and enter into my glory; but you, my dearest son, shall have what you have sought, the Father Himself and all His love! [19] I think, my dear friend, it will be obvious from this parable, what is more, that dry law only, or the overriding and the embracing of love only. [20] If all is not completely clear to you yet, I ask you: if you had the opportunity to choose a bride out of two virgins of whom you would be convinced that you both love each other, but you are not yet completely sure which one loves you the most. Would not you very much wish to find out who does love you the most, to choose the one who loves you most? You say: That's very clear, but how do find out? That we'll have at once. [21] See, you come to the first one. She is busy and active. Out of love for you, she does not mind all the hard work she does for you, because she makes shirts, socks, nightgowns, and more such clothing for you. She has so much to do, that not seldom, out of sheer business, is she hardly aware of you when you come to her. See, that's the first one. - The second one works very casually. She also does things for you, but her heart is too busy with you to give her attention to the work. If you visit her, and she sees you coming from far away, there is no talk of working, because then she knows nothing higher, nothing more commendable than you alone! You alone are her all in all, for you she would give all the world! Tell me which of the two will you choose? [22] You say: Dear friend! The second one is dearer to me, because what do I care about a few shirts and stockings? Obviously it can be seen here that the first one seeks to earn me only by forcing me to acknowledge her merit. The other, however, seeks to love me. She is beyond merit and knows nothing higher than me and my love. I would take the second one for my wife. [23] Well, I tell you, my dear friend, do not you see clearly the nature of Martha and Mary here? Do you see what the Lord is saying to the law-abiding Martha and what to the idle Mary? [24] But from this you can also see what the Lord demands of every human being beyond the law, and at the same time tangibly reveals what man's love for God consists of. For just the very reason the Lord even cursed, excited in His heart the literal observer of the law (the Pharisees and the scribes), praises the sinful publican, and makes the kingdom of heaven more accessible to the thieves, whores, and adulterers than the dry slaves of the letter [25] Therefore I ask the objector now with the fullest right once again, according to which measure one should love God above everything? If I have the measure, then I have everything, but if I do not have the measure, then I love as one who does not know what love is. So again the question: [26] How should one love God above all else? - And I, John, say: To love God above all means: [27] To love God beyond all law! - How to, shall be made clear next. CHAPTER 102 How to love God above all else [1] But in order to know and understand thoroughly how to love God beyond the law, one must know that the law in and of itself is nothing but the dry way to the true love of God. [2] He who begins to love God in his heart, has already traveled the way; but whoever loves God only by the attitude of the law, is still with his love a traveler on the way, where no fruit grows and not infrequently robbers and thieves of the wanderer wait. [3] But whoever loves God purely, loves Him above all else! For to love God above all means to love God beyond all law. Whoever is out of the way, must go on step by step, in order to reach in the most painstaking manner the goal set for him. But he who loves God fully, skips the whole way, that is, the whole law, and he loves God above all else. [4] But whoever loves God purely, loves Him above all else! For to love God above all means to love God beyond all law. Whoever is out of the way, must go on step by step, in order to reach in the most painstaking manner the goal set for him. But he who loves God fully, skips the whole way, that is, the whole law, and he loves God above all else. [5] But I say: Is not everything explained by the given law, how man has to behave in his desire for worldly things? All things are therefore represented in the law, and besides, for the love of man, there is given the just limitation according to which every man has to behave towards worldly things. [6] But if somebody loves God beyond the law, he certainly loves him beyond all worldly things, because, as I have just said, the use of worldly things and the attitude to them according to the Divine order are represented by the law. A short supplement in a comparative position will make the whole thing as clear as daylight. [7] The Lord speaks to the rich youth: "Sell everything, divide it among the poor, and follow Me!" - What does that mean? In other words, if you, young man, have observed the law, then rise above it, return all laws and all things to the world, and you stay with Me, then you have the life! [8] Who will not know here what God means to love beyond the law? [9] The Lord continues to speak to the disciples: "If you do not become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God." What does that mean? Nothing other than: [10] If you are not like this little child, not respecting everything in the world, neither the law nor the things of the world, coming to Me and taking Me like this child with all love, you will not enter into the kingdom of God! Why not? Because the Lord Himself speaks again: "I am the way, the truth, and the life!" So whoever comes to Me, who is completely one with the Father, must enter through Me into the fold or the kingdom of God. [11] As long as one does not embrace the Lord Himself, he cannot come to Him, even if he had, like a rock, observed a thousand laws without fail. For whoever is still on the way is not yet with the Lord, but who is with the Lord, what does he have to do with the way any more? [12] But here among you there are fools, and many hundreds of thousands, who hold the way much higher than the Lord. And when they are already with the Lord. They turn back and move away from Him, to be on the wretched way! Such people enjoy subjection, slavery, and the hard yoke more than the Lord, who makes every man free. His yoke is exceedingly light and His burden is gentle. Light is the yoke, so that in the course of your life, your love for the Lord will not press your neck, and even gently the burden, which is the sole law of love! - Next we will look at an example. [13] The just Pharisee praises himself by the wayside; but the tax collector finds the whole way very difficult. Because; he is never able to oversee his goal. He therefore bows down deeply before the Lord in his heart, realizes his weakness and inability to walk the path conscientiously. But he embraces God the Lord with his heart and thereby makes a great leap over the whole arduous way and thereby reaches his goal! [14] Who will not reach out with his hands, which means "to love the Lord above all things"? - So let's move on. The Martha is on the way, the Maria at the goal! Here you hardly need to say more about it, for it is obvious and clear here what "loving the Lord above all things" means. [15] But if we want to make the matter clearer, let us look at the scene where the Lord asks Peter three times whether he loves Him? - Why does He ask him three times? For the Lord knew anyway that Peter loved Him, and He also knew that Peter would answer all three of the same questions to Him with the same heart and the same mouth. The Lord knew that. It is not for this reason that He asked this question to Peter, but that Peter should confess that he is free and loves the Lord beyond all law. And so the first question means: "Peter, do you love Me" - Peter, did you find Me on the way? - Peter affirms this, and the Lord speaks: "Feed my sheep"! that means: Teach also the brothers to find Me! - The second question: Peter, do you love Me? means: Peter, are you with Me, are you at the door? - Peter affirms this, and the Lord says, "So feed My sheep!" Or: So bring the brethren to be with Me at the door to life! And for the third time the Lord asks Peter: "Do you love Me?" That means as much as: Peter, are you beyond all law? Are you in Me like I am in you? Peter apprehensively affirms this, and the Lord speaks again: "So feed My sheep and follow Me!" That means as much as: So you also bring the brothers, that they are in Me and live in My order and love the same as you. [16] Because following the Lord means living in the love of the Lord. I think to say again, "to love God above all things", would be superfluous. And since we now know this and have recognized the Light of lights, we will immediately go to the twelfth and last hall. CHAPTER 103 The Twelfth commandment in the twelfth hall - Love unto the neighbor [1] Here we are in the midst of this great and splendid hall, again with a sun tablet, and written in the midst of it with red-lettered writing: "This is equal to the first, that you love your neighbor as yourself; therein is the law and the prophets." Now, someone can immediately rise and say: How should this be understood: love one's neighbor as oneself? The oneself or self-love is a vice, so the basis love of the neighbor can also be nothing more than a vice; in this way, the charity so evidently has self-love or love-for-your-own as foundation. If I want to live as a virtuous man, I must not love myself. But if I am not allowed to love myself, then I am not allowed to love my neighbor because the love relationship with my neighbor should correspond to the self-love as perfectly identical. According to this, one would not love one's neighbor as one loves oneself because one should not love oneself either. [2] See, that would be such an usual objection, which certainly would not be too difficult to meet. Since the self-love of man is as much as one's own life itself, natural self-love is self-evident in this degree, for having no self-love means having as much as no life! [3] It is therefore a matter of recognizing the difference between just and unjust self-love. [4] Self-love is "just" if it has no greater desire for the things of the world than what the right measure of the Divine order has assigned to it, which measure was adequately shown in the seventh, ninth, and tenth commandments. If self-love demands beyond this measure, then it transcends the definite limits of the Divine order and can already be regarded as sin at the first crossover. According to this standard, therefore, charity must be divided; for if someone loves a brother or a sister beyond this measure, he commits idolatry with his brother or sister and does not make him better, but worse. [5] The fruits of such excessive charity are for the most part all the present and all-time rulers of the peoples. How come? Some people have loved one out of their midst because of his more brilliant talents over the just measure, made him the ruler over themselves and afterwards had to let them be punished by him or by his descendants for this vice. [6] It will be said here: But there do have to be kings and princes to guide the nations after all, and they are instituted by God Himself. I will not directly oppose that, but I want to shed light on how it is and what it should be like, I will describe with this opportunity. [7] What does the Lord say to the Israelite people when they required a king? Nothing other than: "To all the sins that this people has committed before Me, it has added even the greatest, that, dissatisfied with My guidance, it demands a king." - From this sentence, I think, can be sufficiently proved that the kings are given by God out of the people not as a blessing, but as a judgment. [8] Question: Are kings necessary at the side of God to guide humanity? This question can be answered with the same answer as another question, which is: Did the Lord have need of any helper in the creation of the world and in the creation of man? [9] Question: Which kings and princes, at any time and how present, help the Lord to preserve the worlds in their order and guide them on their paths? What duke does He need for the winds, which prince for the emanation of the light, and which king for the surveillance of the infinite space of the world and of the sun? But if the Lord can gird Orion without humanly princely and royal support, to feed the Big Dog, and to keep the great world and solar people in the most unerring order, should He need kings and princes among the people of this earth to help Him in His business? [10] If we go back to the prehistory of every people, we shall find that every people was originally of a purely theocratic constitution, that is, they had no other master over them than God alone. It was not until the time when peoples became dissatisfied with the most free and liberal government of God, because they were too well off among them, that they began to love each other excessively. And usually a man became special for the sake of the general love of reward. He was required to be a leader. But the leader did not remain only a leader, for the leader had to make laws, the laws had to be sanctioned, and so the leader became a lord, a lord, a patriarch, then a prince, a king, and an emperor. [11] Thus, emperors, kings, and princes have never been chosen by God, but only confirmed to the judgment of those who, by their free will, have chosen such emperors, kings, and princes from among them, and have given them all power over them. [12] I think that this illumination will suffice to realize that any excess of both self-love and charity before God is an abomination. [13] To love one's neighbor as oneself, means to love one's neighbor in the given Divine order, that is to say, in that just measure, which is assigned by God to each person from the beginning. If you do not yet understand this thoroughly, I will add a few examples by which you can clearly see the consequences of this, as well as other excesses. [14] Suppose a millionaire lives in some village. Will this make the village happy or will it bring disaster? We want to see. The millionaire sees that the public money banks are staggering; what does he do? He sells his bonds and buys realities, goods. The sovereign to which he used to be only a subject is, as usual, in great need of money. Our millionaire is approached to lend capital to the ruler. He does it for good percentages and on the safe mortgage of domination itself. His neighbors, the other villagers, also need money. He lends it to them without decency on land register entry. This situation lasts for several years. The ruler becomes ever poorer and the village neighbors no wealthier. What happens? Our millionaire first seizes the rule, and the ruler, not in the possession of even a penny anymore, must be at mercy and disgrace, gets at the most out of sheer magnanimity a travel allowance, and our millionaire becomes ruler and at the same time lord over his neighbor indebted to him. These, because they are unable to pay him either capital or interests, are soon appraised and seized. [15] Here we have the natural consequence of the happiness which a millionaire or an owner of the excess of self-love has prepared for the villager. There is nothing more to say about it. - Let's go over to the second case. [16] There lives somewhere a very poor family. They barely have enough to manage her daily miserable life. A very rich and rarely charitable man gets to know this poor, but otherwise good and respectable family. He, in the possession of several millions, takes pity on this family and thinks to himself: I want to make this family truly happy all in one blow. I want to give them an estate and a fortune of half a million. At the same time, I want to have the pleasure of seeing how the faces of this poor family will cheer up. He does as he have decided. For a whole week, the family did nothing but shed tears of joy, even to the dear Lord God is spoken out many a "Thank You, God". [17] But only about a year later, when we consider this happy family again, we will discover all the luxuries as it is always at home in the homes of the rich. At the same time, this family became more and more hard- hearted and will now seek to avenge secretly on all those whom who did not want to see them in their distress. The "Thank God" will disappear, but for it equipage, liveried servants and the like is introduced. [18] Question: Has this great excess of charity benefited or harmed this poor family? I mean, here you do not need a lot of words, you just have to reach for all the luxuries with your hands, and you'll find out what benefits this family has received for eternal life through an excess of charity. But from this it becomes evident that charity and self-love must always remain within the bounds of the just Divine measure of law. [19] If the man loves his wife excessively, then he will spoil her. She becomes vain, will appreciate herself and becomes a so-called coquette. The man will scarcely have enough hands to reach out everywhere to satisfy the demands of his wife. [20] Even a bridegroom, if he loves his bride too much, will make her audacious and in the end, unfaithful. [21] So the just measure of love is needed everywhere. Nevertheless, charity is something quite different from what we have come to know. But in what is internal and spiritual charity, we want to learn clearly in the course of this communication. CHAPTER 104 What is true love unto the neighbor? [1] In order to know the foundation of the real true "love unto your neighbor" consists of, one must first know and thoroughly understand who really is a neighbor. Therein lies the main knot buried. One will say: how should one understand that? For the Lord Himself, as the sole representative of charity, has nowhere more detailed provisions. When the scribes asked Him who the neighbor was, He merely showed them in a parable who was a neighbor to the well-known, unfortunate Samaritan, namely a Samaritan himself, who took him to the inn and poured oil and wine into his wounds. [2] From this, however, it emerges that unfortunate people only have in certain circumstances "neighbors" to be their benefactors, and are therefore, conversely, the "neighbors" to their benefactors. So, if there are neighbors only in these circumstances, what neighbors would ordinary people have, who neither have to endure even a misfortune, nor at any time be able to help a victim? Is not there a more general text that describes the neighbor closer? For in this case only the highest distress and on the other side a great wealth, paired with a good heart, are contrasted as being neighbors to each other. [3] We therefore want to see if such broader texts do not exist. There would be one, and that is, "Bless those who curse you, and do good to your enemies!" [4] That would be a text from which it can be clearly seen that the Lord has greatly extended charity by not even excluding the enemies and those who curse you. [5] Another text reads, "Make friends with unjust Mammon." - What does the Lord mean by that? Nothing else than that man should not miss any opportunity to do good to his neighbor. He only allows in the external sense, a public seizing of the goods of a rich man, if it would help many, or at least several needy, but only in the highest emergency. [6] Further, we find a text where the Lord says: "Whatsoever ye do good to one of these poor in My name, ye have done to Me." This sentence is confirmed by the Lord in the presentation of the "most recent" or spiritual judgement, when He says to the elect: "I came naked, hungry, thirsty, sick, imprisoned, and without a roof or a shed, and you received Me, cared for Me, clothed Me, saturated Me and quenched My thirst"; and for the rejected ones, that they did not do so. The good ones apologized as if they never did it, and the wicked, as if they would have done so I He would have come to them. The Lord then clearly says: [7] "Whatever you did or did not do to the poor in My name, you did to Me." [8] From this text, the true charity is already quite clearly highlighted, and it will be shown who are therefore the real neighbor. [9] But we want to look at a text. So this one reads: "If you prepare a banquet there will be no invitations for those who can repay you with a reciprocal party. You will not have a reward in heaven for that, for you have received such in the world. But if you invite the needy, lame, brash, in every way poor people, who cannot repay you, you will have your reward in heaven. So also lend your money to those who cannot repay you, so you will store up reward for the heavens. But if you lend your money to those who can repay you and with interest, then you have your reward here. If you give alms, then do so silently, and your right hand should not know what the left does. And your Father in Heaven, who sees in secret, will bless and reward you in heaven!" [10] I mean, from these texts one can almost grab with the hands, who the Lord regard to be the actual neighbor. That's why we want to see what meaning it contains. [11] Everywhere we see that the Lord only putting poor people over against the wealthy. Why? Nothing other than that the poor are designated and placed before the wealthy as the true neighbor of the Lord, and not rich over against rich and poor over against poor. The rich over against the rich can only consider themselves as neighbors if they unite for equally good, God-pleasing purposes. However, the poor are also one another's neighbors, if they also join together as much as possible in patience and in love for the Lord as well as brotherly among themselves. [12] The first degree of charity thus always remains between the wealthy and the poor, and between the strong and the weak, and is in the same proportion as that between parents and children. [13] But why should the poor to the wealthy, the weak to the strong, and the children to the parents be considered the closest of neighbors? For no other than the following simple reason than that the Lord, as the closest to every man, according to His own expression, preferably represents Himself in the poor and weak as in the children of this world. For He Himself speaks: "Whatsoever ye do to the poor, ye have done to Me!" - If you do not always have Me personally in your midst, then you will always have the poor (as the Lord wanted to say)as My perfect representatives among you. [14] So the Lord also says of a child: "He who receives such a child in My Name will receive Me." [15] From all this, however, it is clear that men have more or less to consider each other according to their degree of "neighbor," the more or less they are filled with the Spirit of the Lord. But the Lord does not give his Spirit to the rich of the world, but only to the poor, the weak and the secular. The poor man is thereby more and more filled with the Spirit of the Lord, because he is poor, for poverty is a major part of the Spirit of the Lord. [16] Those who are poor, resemble the Lord in their poverty, while the rich cannot. They do not know the Lord. But He knows the poor. Therefore the poor should be the neighbor to the rich, to which they, the rich, must come if they want to approach the Lord; for the rich cannot possibly regard themselves as the neighbor of the Lord. The Lord Himself has shown the infinite gap between Him and them in the story of the rich glutton. Only the poor Lazarus He places in the bosom of Abraham, so as to be close to Him, the Lord. [17] Thus, even at the event of the rich youth, the Lord showed who should be his neighbor before he could come again to the Lord and follow him. And everywhere the Lord represents the poor as well as the children as one's neighbor, or even as His formal representatives. These are to be loved by the wealthy as well as they do themselves, but those of their kind, they should not. For that is why the Lord said that this commandment of charity is equal to the first, with which He would say nothing other than: What you do to the poor, you do to Me! [18] But that the rich should not consider each other as neighbour, is evident from what the Lord says, that the rich should not invite the rich as their guests and lend their money to the rich, as well as from the fact that He did not command the rich youth to distribute his goods among the rich, but among the poor. [19] But if some rich man wants to say: My closest neighbors are my children, I say: By no means! For the Lord took only one poor child, who begged on the way, and said, "He who receives such a child in My name, he will receive Me." The Lord never had anything to do with children of the rich. [20] For that reason, when the king cares anxiously for his children, he commits a very strong sin against charity. The rich man cares best for his children by caring for a well-pleasing education, and not saving his fortune for his children, but giving the greater part of it to the poor. If he does that, the Lord will take his children and will lead them on the best way. If he does not do that, the Lord turns His face away from them, withdraws His hands, and leaves already their tenderest youths to the hands of the world, that is, the hands of the devil, and they become worldly children, worldly men, saying as much as, being devils themselves. [21] If you knew how down to the lowest, third degree of hell all family capital and especially the inalienable inheritance are cursed by the Lord in the most terrible way, you would be frozen in terror and fear and your hearts would become petrified like a diamond! [22] Hence all the rich, wherever they may be, should heed this as much as possible, avert their hearts as much as possible from their riches, and thus, with the riches, do as much good as possible, if they want to escape eternal inferno. For on the other side there is a twofold melancholy, a vast, gloomy place, from which only inconceivably narrow paths lead, on which the wanderers fare not much better than the camel facing the eye of the needle. But there is also an eternal hellish condition from which, as far as I know, there are no paths yet. So let the rich, as well as anyone who possesses so much that he can still do something for the poor, take heed. But from this it is now shown what the true charity consists of. Such it is also taught and practiced here in the sun. But how this happens we will examine in more detail later. CHAPTER 105 Practical instruction about charity of the students in the hereafter [1] You know that nowhere is anything to be done with merely theoretical knowledge and belief. What good is it for someone to plague his head with a thousand theories? What good is it for somebody if he considers everything to be true, what is written in the book of life? All this benefits one just as if someone had literally appropriated all musical theories and had also come to the conclusion that, if he were to make use of theories in practice, he would seriously produce the most eminent compositions, or at least become a virtuoso on one or the other instrument. Question: Will he be able to compose any piece of some value by any of these fundamental theoretic skills without the least practical skill? Or will he be able to either sing only the least part of a composition par excellence or perform it on a musical instrument? Certainly not, because without practical exercises, no theory is of any use. [2] It is the same as if there were some foolish father who, while caring for his child and training his mind, yet always keep his feet bound together. Question: Will the child be able to walk, even though he saw others do it and would have learned all feet and foot movements theoretically from a Spanish dance master? The first step he would dare will turn out to be so uncertain, that this only theoretically educated child will immediately lie on the ground. [3] It is thus more than clear that knowledge only, without practice, is useless! For it is a burning chandelier in an empty hall, the light which burns on its own and benefits no one. Accordingly, the actual exercise of what one has recognized and knows is infallibly the main focus. Since action in the realm of the purest spirits is always a matter of action, and the activity of charity is the chief principle of all spiritual activity, this commandment of charity here is taught more practically than theoretically. [4] But how? These, as you see, grown-up students are taken with on all sorts of missions by the more accomplished spirits, and especially the newcomers from the earth must learn to distinguish the true neighbor, the less neighbor, and then the far-off. They must recognize how they have to behave towards their neighbors, their neighbors and the distant ones. [5] As you know, the sense of pity of the youth is greater than that of the fixed manhood. Therefore it also happens that these disciples receive everything they encounter with great sympathy and compassion. [6] They immediately want to push everybody into heaven, because they do not yet know from experience that heaven grants only blessedness to the closest neighbors, but that the lesser neighbors and far-off ones are a greater, even the greatest trouble. On these occasions, they first fully realize how true charity consists in giving each being his freedom and grant him his own love. [7] For if you want to do something to someone other than what his love requires, you have not shown him any love service. If one asks his neighbor for a robe, and the neighbor gives him a loaf of bread instead, will the petitioner be satisfied with that? Certainly not, because he only asked for the robe, but not for the bread. [8] If someone goes into a house and asks for a bride and they give him a basket of salt instead of the bride, will he be satisfied with that? And if somebody wants to make his way to a place to the north where he has a business, but a friend has his wagon harnessed, take the businessman who wants to go north, and drive south with him, he will be helped? [9] Therefore, before they can bring their charity into practical use, the spirits must first learn to exactly discern the love of the spirits being brought on their way. When they have discerned this love, so also must be acted according to this love. [10] He who wants to go to hell must have his escort there, for so is his love, without which there is no life for him. And whoever wants to go to heaven must be given the guidance that, purified in the righteous ways, he can then reach heaven fully qualified and there he can exist as a truly sanctified citizen. [11] But it is not enough to bring all spirits into one and the same heaven, but heaven must correspond to the love of the spirit to the atom, for every other heaven will not be tolerated by a heavenly citizen, and he will suffer in it, like a fish in the air. [12] For every man's love is the life element peculiar to him. If he does not find this, his life will soon be over. Therefore, charity in the realm of pure spirits must be thoroughly and properly purified and formed before these spirits are truly able to receive the newcomers, as well as to bring those who have long been in the spiritual realm, into the truly blissful and living order of God. [13] The education and purification of this charity is therefore to explore and to recognize the mode of love in the spirits, and then to recognize and understand the ways and how these spirits are to be led into the Divine order. [14] No spirit may ever be violated. His free will, together with his knowledge, determines the way, and the love of the spirit determines the style and manner in which he is to be guided. [15] When the spirits first arrive at the place of their congenial love and behave malevolently there, then it is time to interfere - but again only according to the nature of their wickedness. [16] And see, in everything concerning charity, our students are taught in the most practical way. Once they have acquired a skill, they receive the ordination of perfection. They are then, for a fixed period of time, given to the people living on the earth as guardian spirits, mostly for the purpose of practicing the true patience of the Lord on this foundation. You would scarcely believe how difficult it is for such a heavenly spirit to be so condescending with the stubborn people of this earth, that they never realize that they are accompanied by such a guardianship in every way and are guided according to their love. [17] Indeed, it is no trivial matter, if one is equipped with all might and power and may not call fire from heaven as a beginner, but must constantly watch, being conscious of his power and might, how the person entrusted to him, is engaged in all sorts of filth of the world, forgetting the Lord more and more. [18] A most mischievous, utterly naughty little girl is like the highest heaven compared to the task of a guardian spirit at the beginning of his mission. How many tears must they shed, for the extent of their influence may exist only in the softest whisper into the conscience, or at most on extraordinary occasions, the prevention of certain calamities inflicted by hell upon the earthly mortals. In everything else, they may not interfere. [19] But just imagine for a bit the often bitter lot of a so-called tutor or teacher, if he gets quite rough and playful children to educate. Is not job of a woodcutter better? Sure, because the wood can be felled and split according to the will of the woodcutter, but the rude child mocks the will of his master. But this condition is barely a shadow against that of a guardian spirit whose person is either a miser, a thief, a robber, a murderer, a gambler, a whore, and an adulterer. The guardian spirit must always passively observe such atrocities and must not counteract with all his might in the least anticipatory manner. And if anticipation is permitted on some occasions, it must nevertheless be so cleverly applied that the protégé is not in the slightest hindered in the sphere of freedom of his will, but at most only in the actual execution of it. [20] See, this is the second practical business in which our holy students must practice in charity, and especially in the patience of the Lord. But what happens to them after this exercise in patience, will be shown next. CHAPTER 106 Essence and consequences of vice [1] John: “After our disciples are well trained in patience and return from their duty in this outer world, usually after the decease of one of their entrusted persons they protected, they must stay near them as long as the natural spiritual condition of a person’s deceased soul lasts here. At the moment of the unmasking or emptying by which each spirit is simply left on his own, they return to the spiritual sun. Only from there they go to a new destiny. But where? This is very easy to guess when one considers that our disciples had sufficient opportunity up till now to practically observe and recognize the breaking of the law, first as disciples spiritually, scientifically and then as spirit protectors. [2] The fact that after this understanding there is still a third, and after the third a fourth understanding, should be clear to everyone who knows that the goal, that is reached with each evil, brings along certain consequences, and it is only with this goal that the basis or main cause of the evil is recognized. For if one is still not aware of the consequences of sin and completely realizes the cause of sin, then he is still not so free and firm to sufficiently abhor sin. But once he realized that the consequence is the result of an unchangeable law and if he recognized the cause that is behind it, only after that, by his free insight and his fee will, he will entirely become a firm adversary of all the evil. [3] But where must our disciple go to realize this? They must travel through the Hells escorted by mighty and very experienced spirits, and this from the first up to the last or lowest one. In the first and second one we can see the consequences of evil and it is especially in the second one that the cause of evil becomes more and more obvious within the still very visible consequences. Only in the third, lowest Hell they come to know the basis or main cause of all evil. [4] Many can say: ‘The consequences and the cause are two points of a circle that come together in one and the same spot, for no one will perform an action without wanting to realize the intended goal. [5] For if someone wants for instance to steal somebody’s money, then the love for the money and his selfishness urged him to this action. This was certainly the reason of his actions. Once he stole the money, then this is certainly the result of his action. But this was and is only the initial reason for the action itself that was carried out.’ [6] I say however: if you consider the matter from this point of view, then one will only commit treason regarding his own understanding and by that he shows that he never understood the inner wisdom. That is why we will immediately give a counterexample from which it will become clear that the consequence and the actual cause of the action can be very different. [7] Before we give the example, we should make known a few principles that come from the divine order and in which the consequence of every action has been determined from eternity, and in this the cause becomes visible in accordance with the action. [8] The principles are as follows: every action has a correspondent consequence which is determined and sanctioned by God Himself. This consequence is the unchangeable judgment that is connected to every action. So it is determined by the Lord that every action will finally judge itself. [9] However, as only the Lord can be considered as the cause for every good action, so it goes for every bad action. Every bad action has thus also always one and the same cause. These are the doctrines. [10] Now we will explain these with examples. Let us take a fornicator1. As long as he lived he committed unrestrained and ruthless lewdness. Externally no one could see the consequences on him of the evil, for this cannot always be seen on the body. Nevertheless, by his sinful actions this man degraded his spirit entirely as a coarse fleshly material love and by that he materially and spiritually wasted his life’s forces. What is there still left of him? Nothing but the life of a polyp for his soul. He will come into the beyond with nothing else than his sensual, fleshly lust for pleasure. His striving is the same as that of a polyp, meaning continuously lusting in his own way. There is no question of a spiritual guided reaction, because during his life in the flesh the spirit was united with the sensual soul and this up to the last drop. [11] Question: Will such soul in the beyond be still accessible or capable for a higher form of life? He who really wants to know should take out a polyp from the sea and see if he can make it jump in the air. Such task will certainly not succeed, for as soon as he picks up the polyp out of its mud-element and brings it in a dry place in the pure air, the polyp will soon die off, shrivel up, decay and finally dry up and become a loamy clump. [12] See, this is exactly how it is with such lascivious, lustful soul. He is a mud polyp who has only one life awakening desire, namely lusting for pleasure. His whole intelligence is directed towards acquiring this pleasure. What is the consequence of this? Nothing but the miserable and very pitiful condition of the soul himself, namely to ever fall back into a most ordinary and lowest animal condition. And it is now exactly this condition which is called the first Hell. So this is the very natural consequence that has been obtained according to the just order, so that by this forbidden way of acting the soul will finally return to the lower, animal condition from which he was led by the Lord in earlier times along so many stages upward to a free human being. [13] This resulting condition is however kept very miserable by the Lord in view of the lust for pleasure, so that the spirit that is still present in the soul would be able to detach itself more and more from the lewdness. This is the only procedure by which such soul with his spirit can possibly still be saved, for if the soul would be more and more fed, his desire would become ever stronger and then eternally there can be no more question for the spirit to be saved. [14] In the worst case, what is the second consequence of this necessary way of treatment? [15] Listen, since the spirit of such soul was completely one with him, also his entire love has turned to the lust of his soul. Now if he becomes free through the fasting of the soul, he will be offended and hurt because he had to languish by the deprivation of food to restrain his very own soul. [16] Since hr is offended and hurt, the spirit becomes furious and demands compensation. But where can it find this? In the second Hell. [17] Now what is this second Hell? Only the consequence of the first one. And by this consequence the real cause of the first action becomes already visible. [18] Because the anger is nothing else but a fruit of the excessive self-love and this has its roots in the lust for power which is the motivation of all evil, and its home is the third or lowest Hell. How finally a third Hell will develop from the second one and how our students will see and experience all this in practice, we will see next. CHAPTER 107 In the second hell [1] Do you know why people on Earth are obedient? The answer is very easy to give. Perhaps out of great respect for the person who rules? O no, because the one who is honored is usually not secretly shout at, and even less cursed and damned. Nevertheless, this is what citizens do to their kings. But the one who is not obeyed out of respect, is even less obeyed out of love. Therefore, we can find no other reason for obedience than fear. [2] Fear is based on what? It is firstly based on personal powerlessness, secondly on the superior power of the ruler and thirdly on the fact that in certain circumstances the king will not be too cautious with the lives of his citizens. A ruler who is often equipped with a million of instruments to kill and who does not have to give an account to anyone for killing one or many people is certainly not very trustworthy, for the wrath of a dictator can mean the death of many thousands. [3] When we realistically look at the matter then it appears that the main reason for obedience if the fear of death. [4] Imagine a country in which there are only fully reborn, spiritually awakened people. Then it would be quite different regarding the fear of the death penalty. The ruler will then have to take quite different measures if he would like to remain the leader of his people. [5] But then, the fear of death is based on what? I tell you: solely and only on the uncertainty whether there is or not another life after the loss of this life (disbelief). Who of you is afraid before going to sleep, even though the sleep is only a periodical death of the body? Why is there no fear to go to sleep? Because it is known from experience that there will be a waking up in the same life, even if it seems to be a new life. Take away this experience and everyone would, before going to sleep, be afraid in the same measure as he is afraid of physical death. There are actually people on Earth who believe that their life lasts for only one day and perishes every day, and that the next day another person will live in their skin. [6] This belief comes from a people in a certain part of Asia that believe in the migration of the soul, believing that every day their soul passes from one animal into another and that they mostly live for only one day in a human being. When on the next day another soul remembers the past, then they think that this is because of the body’s system. Every following soul must by necessity be placed into the consciousness, awakened by the body’s system. So this is their philosophy and the result is that they are terrified to fall asleep, because to them this is only the means with which the old soul is pushed out of the body to make place for another. For this reason, these people try to drive away the sleep as much as possible and with all kinds of means. All this resembles the fear of the common earthly people for the physical death. [7] If the spirit of men were awakened, then he would not be concerned or afraid for the falling away of his body, as little as a common person is concerned or afraid to go to sleep, for experience tells the spirit that there is an eternal life which is indestructible, and experience tells the soul that the sleeping body will awake the next morning, for which reason he is then also not afraid to go to sleep. [8] So the fear of death as a possible destruction of existence is thus within the soul as long as the spirit is not awakened in him, because it then would awaken a totally different awareness. [9] With this foreknowledge let us go back to our first Hell. There the soul is only a pleasure-seeking and food swallowing polyp, and this out of dumb selfishness and self-love, because when he cannot accomplish his lust for pleasure he constantly visualizes a possible destruction. [10] In the second Hell, as we know, the serious fasting of the lusting soul shrivels more and more and the spirit that merged with him became freer by this means of isolation. In the best case, which is rare, a spirit changes, strengthens himself and elevates his soul more and more. In the most frequent, worst case the spirit is awakened, but since he is awakened he feels very hurt and offended because of the neglect of his soul and also he feels neglected. By that he becomes angry, and in his anger he more and more lets the idea take root in him that the deity needs to give him an immeasurable compensation for this injustice. [11] The more the spirit is fixed on that idea the higher his demands are and he also becomes more and more dissatisfied about every proposition that is made to him for eternal satisfaction. [12] As his demands are ever higher, caused by his ever greater dissatisfaction, the more and more awakened spirit thinks about revenge out of self-satisfaction. Because of this feeling he becomes more and more a despiser of God (devil). He also realizes more and more that he cannot be destroyed and strengthens himself with the idea that the spirit can infinitely grow stronger by intensifying his ideas and by making higher demands. From this feeling comes then the satanic idea that the deity would be afraid for the ever-growing power of such spirits and would therefore hide Himself and would secretly spy on the actions of His mighty enemies by certain fearful and weak spiritual spies. When the situation becomes alarming the deity retreats further and tries to protect Himself in all kinds of ways against the superior attack of such powerful spirits. [13] By this idea, the all-dominant feeling of superiority of the spirit becomes ever stronger and the feeling of revenge regarding a supposed cunningness of the deity grows. Then he thinks that the deity must of course become less powerful. Yes, the spirit abhors now the deity, despises and bitterly hates Him and considers himself a superior being. [14] Once this has happened, the third Hell is already a fact. How it will further develop along this line, our disciples must secretly observe with us on the way of divine, protecting providence, and will then have to learn in the lowest Hell to perceive everything by experience up to the actual basis of evil. But how finally the actual cause of evil will reveal itself in this lowest and most malicious of all Hells, will be shown in what follows. CHAPTER 108 Nothing is destructible in the whole of creation [1] Many will ask now: ‘How can one think and believe that it is possible for some very inferior life’s power to rebel from the sphere of its awareness against an infinite, absolute perfect life’s power? Because the low life’s power must certainly know and be aware that a minimum of life’s power can never stand against the infinite and that a victory can eternally not be possible.’ Good, I say, this objection does not sound bad but is mostly based on ignorance. In an exceptional case this objection can approximatively be mentioned, but since in the pure spiritual kingdom there are no hypotheses and thus also no approximates, but only truths, it can thus also not be worth of an answer. [2] A spiritual answer is a full truth, but if it (the truth) is not contained in the question, it cannot be answered. The one who asks the question will receive an answer but never a proper direct answer to his question, but only as an indirect truth. This is also the case here. When the answer is there, the mentioned objection will be solved by itself. [3] So whether a lower or as here a very inferior life’s power can rebel or not and if it can be destroyed by the infinite life’s power, will soon be shown from a few small examples. [4] How heavy a mountain is should not be further explained to someone who has carried a few smaller stones. A small mountain consists of what? Of only atomically small parts that stick together through the mutual power of attraction. If we dig from down the mountain upwards, up to the place on which the highest, thus heaviest top rests, then by that we discover well preserved and very strong stony walls. If we only take a small part from these strong stony walls, put it on a steel plate or on a stone and hit it a little with the hammer, this part will become dust. [5] Question: why could this part not stand against the pressure of the hammer while for a period of thousands of years it could stand the immeasurably great pressure of the heavy weight of a whole mountain? One will say: ‘Under the mountain it was a real part of the whole mass and therefore, with the help of the other parts, it could stand the total pressure. But alone, without help, it already had to collapse under the minor pressure.’ Good, but did this minor pressure completely destroy this part? Certainly not, but it divided it in much smaller parts. [6] Could one then not use such pressure to destroy these parts completely? Also this is impossible, neither under pressure neither by no matter what means of power, for in the one way it can only be divided into smaller parts, but in the other way it can be changed into a simple and then even less destroyable element. [7] So also, the whole weight of the Earth is resting on its small, insignificant center. How can it resist this force of attraction that acts upon it from all sides? For the simple reason that according to the eternal divine order in the whole infinite creation there is nothing that can be destroyed and the very smallest can continuously maintain itself against the very biggest, if not in this, then certainly again in another form. [8] If we now attribute a complete awareness to these small parts by which they can realize that they can eternally not be destroyed, the question is: which power can restrain them and which can overcome them? Or can a whole mountain lose something if its smallest basic parts are indestructible? Certainly not, for if one atom could be destroyed, then it would also be the same for the others and in the same way it would also have happened to the mountain. [9] This would also be the case for the Earth, and even God Himself would finally not fare better if in His whole infinity there would be something that could be destroyed. [10] So, according to the unchangeable, eternal divine order, the very smallest can exist next to the very biggest. As a result, when the smallest life’s power in his spiritual sphere is aware that he cannot be killed or destroyed, he also has no more fear for the supreme life’s power. And then this awareness gives to the lowest life’s power a feeling of lust for power by which he says: ‘I am so necessary and indispensable to the highest life’s power who sees Himself as deity, that He cannot exist without me. If we, as different, yes numberless many low life’s powers unite to one unity, then we can work from the center and make the supposed highest power the lowest. Then He can also worship us just like He is asking now from us. If we possibly can turn the inside of a world to the outside, then this must also be possible with us, life’s powers. If we, little powers, unite and cause great disturbance towards the outside, then the deity, as the little life’s power, will be at our feet.’ [11] Look, this is pure hellish philosophy and also the actual cause of all evil, and its name is lust for power. [12] With this understanding we also have come to know the whole nature of the lowest Hell, and this nature corresponds to the outer appearances of a celestial body. On the surface the first degree of Hell in the polyp-like seeking for pleasure can clearly be recognized, for everything that you can see there is based on gluttony. In the more inner crust of the Earth the fasting and meagerness reveals itself. There is nowhere any vegetation. Everything lies there as in a rigid death that plans for revenge. At most you will see here and there some places of fire and hot water springs as corresponding images of the already visible anger of the spirits of this Hell. [13] If we go to the inside of the Earth, we can only discover a continuous, terrible chaotic confusion. The one fire ignites the other and suffocates it again. Every drop of water that ends up in here changes immediately into a glowing hot vapor. [14] The greater action here the greater will its reaction be on the surface and this will always weaken all these internal reactions with great ease. And in this manner, everything is wisely guided so that also all these Hells, despite their great abhorrence, must serve Him for the eternal preservation of things. And this forced servitude, which is well known to the hellish spirits, is their greatest torment, for they clearly can see that despite their unwillingness, all their activities must generally be in accordance with the divine order. [15] But this is also the eternal love and wisdom of the Lord, for it is only in this manner that it is possible to restrict the imperious actions of these evil beings. For if they see that the Lord can always turn their most evil plans to good, they become angry and do nothing anymore till they make a new plan to act against the Lord. The Lord knows how to use these also of course, just like the previous ones. This is rhetorically speaking the activity and the nature of the lowest Hell. [16] How this will reveal itself in an image, we will see more closely, and this in all of the three Hells. CHAPTER 109 Images from the first and the second Hell [1] When you received information about the sun you saw what the image of the first Hell looks like, as well as the different ways by which one comes into the first Hell. I only have to add that the zeal of the hellish spirits that you saw in the first Hell is firstly set on pleasure and gluttony. This condition seems to be the same as the one on Earth in which men do also everything possible to – as you use to say – bring bread on the table. [2] Some set up different businesses, others look for a job as public officer, some look for a good marriage. They do not do all this for the sake of what is good, but exclusively for their own sake and the daily bread. In this condition they do not care much for one or the other glory but they are mostly interested in a certain livelihood. [3] In the heavenly manner one is solely concerned about love and to know God. The Lord will take care of all the rest. But in the hellish manner, one is particularly concerned about the opposite. They want to have a certain well-being, and at best they think: as long as I am first of all assured of all the external necessities, then I will see if the spirit is satisfied with this well-being. When he then possesses such external wellbeing, which usually goes together with some modest possession, he will soon become haughty, which is related to his possessions and which he continuously strengthens with a certain splendor. For this reason, also the young employees and new managers, each one of course in their own way, boast more and more. Soon they do not know anymore how to sit, stand, walk, look, listen or speak to immediately show and let recognize from their face how rich they are and what kind of important job they occupy. [4] Once such people are in this way provided with everything, they do not have to take care for anything anymore, for they have their fixed income and their daily bread. Now they can begin to take care of what is spiritual. But the opposite happens. Now, together with this wellbeing, the boasting and the lust for power come forward. That is why they strife more and more to move to the top and become even richer than the managers. In this situation they become filled with jealousy and inner hate towards those who stand somehow in their way. [5] Their neighborly love goes so far that many subordinate employee longs fervently for the death of the employee that is above him, so that is such situation he can take the place of the one who stands above him. The manufacturer’s most fervent desire is the bankruptcy of those who are in the same business, so that in this way he can draw the whole business to himself. Yes, his neighborly love goes so far that, if possible, he would like to drown all his competitors in a drop of water. He also undertakes everything, no matter where and how it can be done, to bring his next competitors to ruin. [6] If you look at this worldly behavior a little closer, you can see the first Hell with all its gluttony already completely before you, and you can also see very clearly represented how this changes into hate, anger, envy and lust for power in the second Hell. You only have to take away the outer moral and civilian laws of the state and you have the first and second Hell literally and figuratively before your eyes. [7] That which on the Earth stills testifies of a certain civilized society under the protection of moral and civilian laws will degenerate here when those laws will fall away, and turn immediately into war, lust for robbery and murder. Here you have the perfect image of the first Hell. [8] If you want the image of the second Hell, do the same. You will discover hidden cunningness everywhere and you nowhere will see people or spirits together who are not each other’s mutual deadly enemies. Even if they outwardly treat each other with kindness, great politeness and also hypocritical mutual love, this love is only pure hate, for this is only politics to bring the opponent in a peaceful mood and to nicely unarm him in order to then, without resistance, overtake him and bring him to ruin. [9] Look at your Earth at the so-called crawlers and bootlickers. These are usually the worst enemies of those for whom they crawl. They lift them up for the same reason as the vulture picks up the turtle in order to, once he has reached the right height with him, drop him down in a shameful manner and win in this way even more by their fall. [10] Look, this again is literally and figuratively the pure hellish love of the second degree. That is why in this Hell all kinds of deceitful arts are worked out in order to catch each other and bring them to ruin in the foolish supposition that they can win more and more with the fall of others, no matter in what way. [11] In this manner our disciples are thoroughly learning about the Hells, first theoretically and then practically. And so, in a very short time we took a closer look to the images of the first two Hells. He who will somehow think about this description, will have everything clearly before him. For what concerns the image of the third Hell, we will describe this separately, for this must be very well understood because it is the cause of every evil. CHAPTER 110 Every person carries Heaven and Hell in himself according to his personality [1] You will certainly think, and many others even more if they were present on this information: ‘It is praiseworthy and from a moral point of view also useful to hear such information by which the fundamental evil is as if visually represented. But there are now on Earth so many descriptions of Hell. They all seem to have the same origin, but how different they are from each other. For the one person, Hell is a pool of fire and sulfur, for the other a gnawing glowworm, again for another a raging fire, an eternal darkness, an eternal death. According to some the damned are tortured, cooked and fried, to others they are simply barons. Some see Hell as a terrible cold, again others as the fire of boiling anger. Some see in it miserable, malformed and starving human forms, again others a collection of the most strange, hideous forms that could have originated from a human form. And so, the notion of Hell became a real Proteus which cannot be compared to any form. [2] For the pure human reason this is a very acceptable and for this time very understandable image of Hell, but who can tell whether in the course of time this image will not be pushed aside by again a different one? For nothing was represented in so many multiple forms than actually this place of horror under the name of ‘Hell’. [3] Good, I say to you, my dear friends. Your worrisome objection has its good reasons, for it is completely based upon the reality of the common notions about Hell. Therefore, I want and must show you Hell in a general light in which every up to now common imagination of Hell, no matter where on Earth, becomes completely justified. [4] If we only look at Hell from the outer and superficially, it is understandable that it appears as a true Proteus with an ever-changing image. But it is quite different when one wants to thoroughly understand it. [5] In order to make this more understandable to you, we will, with the means of little examples, bring this difficult question into the light so that it will become very clear for everyone. [6] Let us take a country where thousands of people are living. All these people, with the exception of those who are insane, idiots and infants, have all kinds of multi-colored ideas about the secret politics of the country. He who wants to know them more closely can speak with different people about this. The one sees only war, the other only secret treason, again another secret national deception, again others sheer wisdom. Some cry aloud about injustice, others lack words to praise the constitution and the secret politics of the country. [7] But only these are sheer opinions of the more developed part of the people about the secret political government. But whoever wants to hear foolishness should go to the dark chambers of the farmers in the countryside. Then he can be assured that he will hear anything that can come up in an undeveloped, rough human fantasy. For instance that the emperor is planning to poison his city or that he wants to contaminate a certain part of the country with the pest, or that he made a covenant with another king to kill in one night the people of another region with the sword to take possession of the goods of the citizens that he would kill, not to mention other stupidities, like for instance that the king personally sold his soul or the souls of his citizens to the devil in return for a great earthly advantage. It should not be proven any further that all this is true, for everyone is free to daily convince himself of this. [8] That this is so cannot not be doubted, but the question is: who among these thousands of people who expressed their political ideas has the right understanding of this and has thereby expressed the true meaning of the basic principles of the secret government of the country. How can one have a basic idea of something which he does not understand himself? [9] Look, the reason lies partly in the outer image, as well as in the personality of the one who looks upon the image. The less the observer himself is innerly awakened, the more senseless will be the ideas that he forms about the images. And look, this is precisely also the case with the ideas about Hell. [10] It was only granted to very few seers to receive a deeper notion in the nature of this place, but it was permitted to a lot to see one or the other image of this place. And so the idea of so many images always exceeded reality. For this reason the so many different forms about Hell have multiplied and nobody knew and knows precisely up to now what to think about that place. [11] Next question: who in the country could set up the best basic principles for the secret government? Certainly no other except the wise monarch himself. [12] When the matter is irrefutably so, then this question will also apply to the dark relations in the beyond. So the answer can only be: that only the Lord over all Heavens as well as over all Hells can set up the right and generally valid basic principles over this place. [13] But as someone who is initiated in the secret basic principles of the government will very easily perceive the cause of all the ideas that are spread around in the nation, so also will the one who knows from the Lord the true nature of that place that is called Hell, understand the cause of all the other foolish ideas about this. [14] Every person carries Heaven and Hell in himself according to his personality. [15] If he becomes aware of his own personality by a certain situation, then he only becomes aware of his own developed Hell or his highly imperfect Heaven. Numberless different ideas can develop along that way. [16] However, can this be already considered as the cause? Certainly not more than if someone would come and claim that the sea is only a half shoe deep because he measured it along the coast with a walking stick. The same is here also the case for all the seers who claim: I saw Hell in this or that situation. And also not more than if someone would take the shallow shore, although it also belongs to the sea, for the actual bottom of the sea, and neither can this visualized image be considered as the actual Hell. [17] But how the actual Hell can be found and thoroughly seen, we will see next. CHAPTER 111 Body, spirit, principle of life [1] If one wants to actually see the real true Hell, one should start to look at the impressions that catch the eye, and from that viewpoint make the corresponding conclusions for the spiritual by means of a spiritual turn. But if this is what one wants, one should accept beforehand the fixed unchangeable fact and understand that the life’s conditions and its effect are always the same under one and the same eternal, unchangeable Lord. In other words: [2] Man lives on in spirit exactly the same as during his physical life here on Earth which is only a life that lives along with it and in between. [3] Now one will say: ‘This sounds strange, for it seems that this is not completely correct, because the spiritual life must certainly be different and must be seen in a quite different perspective than the natural life.’ [4] But I say: the one who speaks like this has certainly no idea how he lives physically. Question: [5] What is it that lives during the physical life, the body or the spirit? What is most important in life, is it the body or the spirit? I believe that if someone is capable of thinking more clearly, will not look for the most important in life in the body but only in the spirit, for if the most important in life would be in the body then the body would be immortal. But the body is mortal, thus it cannot carry the basis of life in itself, but only the spirit can do that, for this is immortal. So the life of the body is therefore dependent on the life of the spirit. The whole body behaves passively and completely negative in regard to the spirit. Therefore, the life of the body is only an awakened life that lives with it, just like some tool in the hand of a craftsman lives passively with it as long as the man directs it with his living hand, but if he drops the tool or if he puts it aside, it has no more life with it and its effective activity stops. [6] Which foolish and dumb person will claim that he has to adapt to his tool, while one can clearly see that the craftsman provides himself with the necessary and proper tool. So when the craftsman has determined which tool he needs for his work, then it will also be clear that the actions of the body that lives with it depends on the living spirit, but not the way around. [7] And so, the spirit lives always out of his own life’s principles and in his own life’s conditions to which the body cannot change anything, as little as the dead tool to the work of the craftsman. [8] But when someone watches how a craftsman uses his tool and understands the design that the craftsman wants to make, can he then still seriously assert that finally by using the tool something very different will appear and a quite different work will develop than the foreman had visualized according to the original plan? Would that not be a senseless statement? Certainly, because what is accomplished is surely the result of the work of the living foreman but not of the tool. [9] So, also the life’s conditions of the spirit are constant, whether he makes use of his body or not as a tool. And thus, if someone wants to actually see Hell here, he can observe it here in the physical life under the same conditions as one time in the pure spiritual, because Hell is on Earth always the same as can be seen in the purely spiritual condition. Nothing more or less can be seen here than there, and in this image we can view it very clearly and very effectively. [10] But in order to make the true image of Hell even more clear and visual for everyone on this Earth, we will first explain the very little difference between the natural and the purely spiritual life’s conditions of men, and this, as much as possible, in a very obvious manner. [11] Take for instance a carpenter who has to make a box. For this he needs the tools that you know. He works diligently and will finish his box within a few days. The urgency was mainly the reason for his zeal. Then why was he so zealous, responding to his inner urgency? Because he wanted to finish the box as soon as possible for his use. Further question: where does this urgency come from? This urgency comes from the creative power of the spirit. How? The spirit carries the quality in him to immediately realize it as an object that he created in his mind. [12] He can do that in a pure spiritual condition because whatever he thinks is also there. But connected to his hindering body he cannot do that with outer matter. For this reason he must urge his body as an instrument for this activity in question in order to gradually realize his idea. This is how it was determined by the Lord, so that in this life, in all kinds of opportunities, the spirit can practice a most necessary quality of life. This quality as mother of humility is called divine patience. Each one who possesses a more mature way of thinking will understand that patience is very necessary for eternal life, because this life does not end. It is already the basis for all good and great achievements for the natural life while this life is only a transitory life. [13] If our carpenter could create his box immediately as he imagined in his thoughts, that would have been more preferable to him. But where would be the very important exercise in patience and where the mutual outer natural reliability if in this material world, where the spirit is still connected to his body, he could make unlimitedly use of his original, creative ability? [14] Although, every spirit receives this ability back after the laying off of the body, but only the good spirit will works in reality, the evil one in fantasy and illusion, because as his nature is, so will also be the result. [15] See, in this given example, the difference between the natural and the purely spiritual life is clearly explained, and from this you can see that in physical life the spirit can only realize his ideas slowly and never completely because the coarse matter with which he is covered hinders him in this while in the purely spiritual condition he wants to realize his idea immediately. The will is always the same, as well as the idea, only its execution is limited in the physical life. This limitation is the only difference between both lives. There is no further difference. The fact that this difference is due to the matter must hardly be mentioned. Since this is now completely clear and evident to us, we will at once show very actual images which are the foundation of Hell. CHAPTER 112 Earthly images of the lowest Hell [1] Firstly, let us take a rich speculator as example. Look closer at this eternally insatiable one. What was the goal of his love and will? Only to acquire – although somehow lawful and permissible – the possessions of a whole country and finally of a whole kingdom, in no matter what way. And once he is successful in this, take also several kingdoms or the whole surface of the Earth. Although he will not completely succeed in such plan and he probably will not realize his idea completely, but he nevertheless does not let it go and he secretly thinks: ‘If I only had an army of at least a couple of million invincible soldiers, then I would gather all the gold, silver, and all the noble stones and pearls of the whole world and pile them up.’ [2] Also, many have the following wish: ‘If only the pest could break out in the country that would kill everyone except me, then I would be the natural, universal heir of the whole country. And if then people would come from another country who would dispute my inheritance, the pest would immediately grab and strangle them at the border.’ [3] Look, this is an image of the lowest Hell which you can daily notice among the people of all classes, starting with the simple stallholder to the greatest speculator. What prevents them from realizing such so-called praiseworthy ideas? Only the fatal matter. If we take that away and if we consider then the absolute spirit with the same qualities, then we have the lowest Hell in top condition before us. [4] Secondly: There is an officer with a lower rank before us. What is the most important thought which abides in his heart? Perhaps the thought to prove helpful services to the country? O no, that is the last one. ‘To promote’, that is the most important thought. If it were possible, climbing every hour one step higher. Be at least a general in one year and as such be promoted as soon as possible. Suppose he reaches the highest degree, then his plan will be, or at least his most important thought: ‘And now let us go out with great armies to conquer all nations. Once they are conquered and I have the power, then all emperors, kings and monarchs must tremble for my sword.’ [5] The one who will not have recognized the lust for power in our officer must surely be struck with a sevenfold blindness. And also here, for what reason can our officer not make it happen? The same as above, the material, natural, limiting conditions. Matter restricts our hero and he must accept his subordinate degree as an officer, whether he likes it or not. That is why he scolds once and awhile and tries to let his subordinates feel his lust for power as much as possible. The least of offenses of a subordinate is punished with tyrannical mercilessness. Take away the material obstacles from this officer and you will have the second, perfect image of the fundamental Hell in an unsurpassed form before you. [6] You also will find this image very often, especially in those categories of people who are entitled to carry a sword and also with those who have the privilege to lead a caricature of a so-called noble weapon for their insignificant name. There you will see the lust for power everywhere in a form that really stands out. And this is now precisely the nature of the lowest of all Hells which is insatiable and which wants to extend its imperiousness and lust into infinity. More examples will follow. CHAPTER 113 Another image of the lowest Hell [1] Let us take a look now at a real illicit lover, just like a female illicit lover. What is such flesh-lusty person continuously thinking about? If it were possible, and nature would permit it, he would like to continuously have sex with the most beautiful and lavish girls in all possible ways. When such person sees a somehow attractive female being, anyone can read from his eyes that he would like to use her on the spot for his pleasure without taking into account for what reason the sexual act was established and created by God. If civil laws would not hinder him a female being would not even be safe in public places against his lust. [2] But this does not change anything because he still sinned out of his lust. Let us assume that such sensual person would have a fortune that would be sufficient to provide him with almost every pleasure he wants. What does he do? He travels to all countries in order to provide himself with several, special pleasures, because despite his great fortune his own place could not offer him anymore enough pleasure for which he stills feels a so-called passion, since he tasted of everything that was in his reach. [3] When our sensualist enjoyed everything, and his nature begins to refuse him its vile service, he uses artificial means to breathe some new life into his dull nature. The same means are first of all taken from the pharmacy. When these do also not work anymore, he provides himself with shameful sex of healthy boys and young men [is prescribed] to such a flesh hero, who has lived to the last drop. By this his nature is again a little activated because the highly-skilled doctors know that the evaporation of the male youth has the greatest effect on a decrepit and fully lived out fornicator. In this way, our meat hero becomes a boy's desecrator. [4] His nature is completely reversed, he gets a formal disgust before the flesh of the women and then seeks only to satisfy himself with the strengthening flesh of the male youth. And if he has also prepared himself a disgust about the buhleric consumption of meat and he has become totally incapable, he will be angry about such an institution of nature, which completely renounces him.. [5] His faith in God was already sacrificed a long time ago, because the sin of the flesh will first kill all the spiritual. By this sin, man becomes a blunt material egoist, loves no one except himself and is of the opinion that everything that he wants in his lust must serve him only. He is excessively in love with himself and therefore he hates everything that does not honor his lust. For this reason he becomes, as said, a purely selfish, hard materialist and already for a long time no trace can be found in him that can be recognized as divine or spiritual. [6] Therefore he is also a pure atheist, and the nature – the outer, visible, coarse nature – is his god. He gives offerings to this god of nature, this as long as he can experience with the given power of his own nature that this god can give him these delightful and enjoyable pleasures, thanks to the arrangement of nature. But woe to that god once he will refuse his service to our hero. Anger, revenge, wrath and furiousness are then his extra gifts or coat of arms. You can believe it, the secret anger of such real arch sensualist, when he cannot commit his illicit love anymore goes beyond all human understanding. A pyromaniac, a murderer and a street robber can have more human feeling in them compared to a greedy sensualist whose body refuses its service. [7] Are there only few of these men of pleasure on Earth? O no, I can assure you that for every money miser there are a lot of such persons who are addicted to flesh. The father who has a daughter with a charming appearance can be sure that she will often be looked at with lusty eyes, especially in the city. [8] One will say now: this does not matter, thoughts and lusts that cannot be executed are tax-free. But I add here: indeed, for the blind of spirit who is not capable to look even one hair further than matter. However, what would a father say when his spiritual eye would be opened and would see all those with lustful eyes before him who dishonor his daughter in all possible ways? [9] Her body can be protected, but who will protect her spirit and its radiating sphere of life with which these lusty people come in contact with and influence with their shameful lusts? Do you think that this will not have a negative influence on that daughter? Then you are seriously mistaken. [10] If you will often take your daughter to places where she is looked at by lustful eyes, then in a short time she will be sensually changed and secretly mock and ridicule the moral warnings of her parents. Her senses will be more and more directed to places of which she suspects that sensual men will be there. Many will say now: ‘No, this is too extreme, this to too exaggerated. What kind of harmful result can an innocent lust or secret lustful thought have on a strange person without any touching?’ I only say on this: for men with such views and such spiritual attitude this announcement is as less intended as the sun for the center of the Earth. Then I will ask those who have experienced in the so-called clairvoyant mediums and seen for themselves the disturbing effect on such persons at the arrival of lusty people, where this effect comes from and what its cause is? Even when such uninvited guest does not touch the medium, he nevertheless feels a convulsive and often painful effect when such guest comes in. [11] Look, the reason of this is that the spiritual sphere of the medium is immediately brought down. This has no bad moral results for the medium because his sphere is more closed up and because every medium will immediately do everything to get rid of such guest. [12] Question: does this also happen under the natural circumstances where the sphere of every person is more extensive and wherein he does not perceive the harmful influence? Truly, the reaction under the natural circumstances is much worse than under the mediumistic. And therefore, for such unchaste thoughts and lusts a separate commandment has been given in which it is stated that everyone should abstain from them and reject them. [13] So he who observes the behavior of such lusty person will see again a perfect image of Hell. He only has to take away his matter and look at him purely spiritually, then he will see astonishing things. First a lecherous person in every respect and besides that a furious person who wants to avenge himself in a shameful manner and with all furiousness on his Creator, as well as on the whole creation because of the supposed imperfection of his nature. I do not have to say more, for he who has eyes can see for himself. In the next female image we will see the image of this Hell even more clearly. CHAPTER 114 Lust for power and vanity – the seeds of Hell [1] There is generally only little psychological knowledge needed to discover that with the female gender the lust for power is a dominant characteristic, but lust for power and vanity are twins and originate thus from one and the same root. Where can you find a woman who does not possess a certain kind of vanity which shows from the manner of dressing or from the manner she arranges her room or from still many other things. [2] Examine the background of this vanity and you will find only the living grain of seed of vanity and the resulting lust for power. [3] Now one will say: ‘No, this is a very strict approach. One should rather praise a certain degree of vanity with the female gender instead of mercilessly criticizing or greatly rejecting it. Because a certain degree of vanity is certainly only a child of the female sense of shame and together with this the sense of cleanliness which is obviously only a praiseworthy virtue, but never a vice of the female gender.’ Good, I say, it unfortunately went so far in the world to think that the sense of shame is a virtue, crowning humanity with this honor, and this is the best harvest for Hell, for in this manner people have to fall, while they hardly could fall in another manner. [4] One is asking: ‘Then why?’ But I ask: the honor of man is based upon what, on his humility or on his vanity? The humble one strives for the lowest level, where no more honor or homage exists, as the Lord has shown with His great example by which He put His honor in the deepest humility and in that which is actually the greatest shame on Earth. [5] A similar honor was already given to His first followers. I ask however: what matters the sense of shame when one is persecuted, scorned and finally slain naked on the cross? How much sense of honor will someone still have in his body and how much sense of shame when he is hanged? I think that in such situation those two esteemed human characteristics will be moved to the background. [6] However, if one wants to come forward with an honor, then in some point he should at least refer to Christ as the center of all virtues. Then I ask: did He ever praise the sense of shame or honor as a human virtue? On the contrary. He actually forbade His disciples and apostles to strife for another honor when He said to them that they should not let themselves be greeted and honored like the Pharisees who like to see when they are greeted on the street and called rabbi. [7] Consequently I really cannot understand why the sense of shame and the lust for power that is connected to it can be considered as a virtue, which comes very strongly forward with the female gender. [8] Now one will say: ‘Take away the sense of shame from the female gender and soon we will have only whores before us.’ Oho, I say, do you think that? Then I add very firmly: in this respect there is no better stimulation for the female gender than the sense of shame. Only a little occasion is needed and every female being is as a result of this feeling ripe for lewdness, for nothing is easier ignored than precisely this feeling which has no other foundation than vanity. The little feeling of honor which stands opposite the feeling of shame is such weak support for that virtue that it will immediately be blown away at the slightest breeze. [9] However, from this it is clear that in this kind of female virtue a very fatal contradiction lies behind it. To immediately put this into a clear light, I will give you examples from your daily life. [10] Imagine you accidentally end up one morning into a dressing room wherein a few young girls are still present in morning dress. They scream loudly and the young girls will flee to all corners and behind curtains, of course only of sheer sense of shame. And on this occasion what did you actually see of all their female charm? At most a head with tangled hair, an unwashed, sleepy face, an arm that was hardly naked up to the elbow, and at most a half-naked breast. But now the girls dress themselves. The arm will often remain naked up to below the armpit, and also the neck and bosom remain uncovered, as far as a certain decency will permit, or it will at most be covered by transparent lace in order to increase the attractiveness of the naked parts. With this came an end to the sense of shame of that morning. [11] Question: is the sense of shame only about the young girl or about her morning dress? Let us go further. It is precisely this same very virtuous lady, who almost had a stroke of sheer shame during that morning visit and who at that time did not allow to be touched by a man, who is taken almost half naked to an evening ball and she lets herself unashamedly be grabbed by her dance partner and often let herself be caressed on every part. Question: where is now that sense of shame of the morning? Probably also left at home in the unattractive morning dress. Let us go further. [12] On some occasion at the ball, that same virtuous girl has a nice company or had eye contact during a nice, innocent walk with a man she finds attractive. The sense of shame is at each opportunity as much as possible set aside for him. Soon our virtuous one will follow the looks of her chosen one and pay attention to where his looks are directed. Then our virtuous lady will soon take care to really let those parts of her body come out as much as possible. [13] However, when the chosen one will meet our virtuous lady in a company where she wants to show herself from her most honorable side, he will have to be satisfied when at a good opportunity she will give him a few hidden looks, but in the company she will try even harder to show her qualities to him. Woe to him if he would forget and come too close to her. But if they would come together, especially in a place where the sunlight is not shining and where the sound waves from the worldly noise are hardly coming through or not at all, then the sense of shame has been overcome completely. And our so virtuous lady of the morning let herself be admired from head to toe. And on such opportunity the free touching is not considered as an offense at all to her virgin sense of shame. [14] In this manner the highly praised feeling of virtuousness is lost completely, and my question is: where is now the effect of this highly praised sense? It is gone and it has shown its true face when the mask was taken away. And so every sound minded person can see that it is nothing else but a snake in the breast of the woman, or the first grain of seed of the lowest Hell from which, once it has developed itself, all possible female vices can come up as from a cornucopia. And how this happens, we will further make clearly visible to every eye, just like before. CHAPTER 115 Fruits ripe for Hell [1] Let us return to our virtuous lady and follow her once more in the company where she, based on her female charms, acts like a queen. Her beloved joins the company also. But what does his favorite lady do now? Does she welcome him? O no, she welcomes a lot of other visitors and let herself be admired now from head to toe. Why actually? [2] Since I know very well the world I say: she does not do this to be unfaithful to her chosen beloved, but only to show him how extremely valuable she is. In a certain way she indirectly says to him: ‘Be well aware what kind of invaluable treasure you have in me.’ [3] But her lover, who does not understand this, takes the matter quite differently. He soon becomes dismayed and turns his eyes away from where his beloved let her be admired. If moreover he takes a sneaky look to that fatal spot, then his looks are already filled with burning jealousy. [4] Our young lady sees that, but does not improve her behavior in the least. But she moreover intensifies the game to take revenge on her lover who just started to underestimate her great value just at the moment when she wanted to display it to him mostly. At this opportunity the lover tries to withdraw himself as much as possible from the company with the intent in his heart: ‘Just wait you mean lady, when we talk to each other again in private, I will tell you what I think in a manner that you will remember, because now I only want to take seriously revenge for your unfaithfulness.’ [5] They meet each other and the fruit of this encounter are angry lectures. The result of this is mostly a separation of the loved ones, only seldom a reconciliation which will however not last, just like the first love did not last. Separation or reconciliation, it always comes down to the same, because if they come together again, it is usually for the purpose to show each other their individual value even more. If they will not continue their relationship, they both will use every means to make each other’s life bitter. [6] Out of sheer revenge the young lady will soon exceed all boundaries of the sense of shame and becomes showy. If the old beloved one does not crawl back, then out of that same sense of revenge she becomes a whore after which the lover will ban out every former feeling from his heart. And once our former virtuous lady has tasted the sweet prickle of lewdness, then it is as if no god can bring her back to virtuousness. If she becomes unhappy by that, then with a heart full of grudge she will mostly put all blame on that first lover who shamelessly underestimated her motives and her former virtue. [7] And when we look back, what does all this mean? Only the already completely developed fruit of the first so highly praised female sense of shame. The name of the fruit is called: lowest perfect Hell, or also: perfect ripe Hell, when the outward cover falls away. For what would such unhappy girl do to the one who is, although unjustly, the cause of all her unhappiness? [8] If it were possible, at that moment that she gives free play to her anger, she would like to see him be torn by a thousand fiery snakes, and this would hardly be a quenching dewdrop on her enraged heart. [9] He who cannot believe that, should visit such unhappy young lady and speak with her about that certain person who made her unhappy. At best he will see from the mouth of the woman as if a volcano that is spitting fire. In the worst case, she will say: ‘Please do not talk to me about that anymore.’ If you heard that, you can imagine what will happen. Now we have shown the fruits that ripe for Hell. In what will follow, we will show this into more detail. CHAPTER 116 In the spiritual condition all secrets come to light [1] It happens that such offended young lady will, from sheer revenge regarding her former lover, marry another person for who she does not feel any love. With this deed she wants to punish her former lover in a hurting manner, for he underestimated her. Yes if possible, she even would kill him for this insult. But what happens? [2] The first lover does not feel offended at all but cheerfully seeks another lover, and often a better person than the first one. What is the result of this to his first love who is married by now? She becomes moody and silent. Her husband asks her for the cause, but in vain. What suppresses her is too big, too difficult and too suspicious in front of her new husband so that she does not dare to tell him. Although she does not undertake further steps to bother her old love or to trap him, she buries the cause of her wrath all the deeper in her heart. Several years pass by, and since, as usual, time is the best plaster to heal so many wounds, also this one heals. Such people can often still become good friends. [3] One will say: ‘Well, in that case, Hell will have received its last part, for when an old enmity is changed into friendship, then Heaven will certainly replace Hell in a proper way.’ This is how it seems from the outside, but this is like a soldier whose body was wounded in many places. His wounds were healed through medicine and time. When the weather is nice our soldier walks around happily and hardly realizes that his body is full of scars. But now the bad weather comes. His scars are breaking out and when the weather gets worse his scars become more painful. He desperately turns around in his bed. He curses the war, all generals, the emperor, yes even God, his parents and the day on which he was born. [4] Look, here we can see now a good image of such morally patched up friendships that are the result of the earthly time which makes man to forget. But once the weather turns bad, that means: let the spirits of such friends come together in the beyond at the moment on which they sinned against each other on Earth. Then at the moment on which they can see, through the clear vision of their spirit, the harm that was caused which is the result of their mutual sins, and besides that, also the advantages which they could have had if they had not sinned, we will see that they will treat each other with the greatest contempt and terrible curses. This is then also not a proper Heaven as it seems to be but pure Hell at its lowest potential. [5] That is why it is also stated in the Scripture that everyone should carefully examine himself, and if there is something no matter how hidden and secret in man, once it will be loudly proclaimed from the rooftops. That means: no matter how deep man will hide something, it will come out and will be visibly revealed in an absolute spiritual form. Therefore, everyone is explicitly advised to carefully examine every friendly and hostile relationship in which he ever was and to view what reaction it will have on the mind if he will be brought back into that same situation. For every living person here on Earth should be prepared to be lively placed back in the beyond in an absolute spiritual condition into all fatal situations which are here for him the greatest offenses. The Lord Himself gave us an example in this. [6] He once was condemned by His enemies and crucified between criminals. After that, His actual soul did not immediately ascend to Heaven but descended to Hell where His worst enemies waited for Him, although there were also many old friends like the old fathers and a lot of prophets and teachers. [7] If someone in this world will not have paid back every last cent, he will not be capable to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. That is why it is so important here to zealously go through every old book of debts. Especially those which carry the word ‘love’. Debts of love are the hardest. A robbery of millions will be more easily erased from the spiritual memory than a debt of love. Why? Because such robbery of millions is only an outer great debt which does not affect the spirit, but the debt of love is mostly related to the whole spirit because all love is the actual nature of the spirit. Therefore, nothing is as dangerous in this world as the so-called ‘falling in love’, for this condition seizes the whole spirit. If there are then obstacles by which the premature sexual love between both sexes is not accomplished, the offended spirits retreat and let the inflicted wounds be superficially cured through all kinds of worldly pleasure, but they are not healed in the least. [8] When later the bad weather comes up again, these wound will open again. This second condition will be much worse than the first, as the Scripture shows where it is written about the 7 spirits that were driven out. Also in this case the house is cleaned up with outer means after which the evil enemy wanders around through dry deserts and steppes, but since he cannot find any accommodation there, he takes another 7 spirits who are worse than him and moves again into his old, cleaned house. [9] The old, cleaned house is the spirit in this world that is cleaned by outer means. The evil spirit is the bad condition in which man has ever lived on this Earth. This is cleaned completely by outer means. Now he wanders around through dry deserts and steppes. That means: the spirit of man heals his wounds and they become scars, so that his wounds dry up and do not bleed anymore. But the evil spirit returns with 7 others. That means: in absolute spiritual condition all wounds become visible again and open again with much greater intensity, and this is the condition which is worse than the first one. [10] And everywhere where you can see the one person acting against another in the fiercest, vicious anger, there is also already the lowest Hell completely present. [11] Therefore, I, John, as very experienced, eternal servant and helper of the Lord, advice everyone, but especially the parents to warn them most of all against the so-called falling in love. How much the spirit suffers from it, you can already notice in a natural way from every young student who prematurely fell in love, because the life of such young man is certainly degenerated and he is not capable anymore to develop himself spiritually. No matter what kind of passion he otherwise may have, they all can be controlled with good guidance, and so one can still make a decent person out of him. But a certain lively fantasy image, once it has fixed itself in the spirit, is more difficult to remove from a young mind – male or female – than moving a mountain. [12] And the basis of such premature falling in love is precisely the greatest spiritual lewdness, for lewdness and harlotry are those things that target the deceit of the spirit. [13] Since love is mainly a matter of the spirit, the deception of love or a clear offense against it is the true spiritual lewdness of the worst and lowest degree, or the actual lowest Hell. [14] Everyone should well and very consciously take at heart what has been said up to now. After this will follow more and similar observations. CHAPTER 117 Heaven and Hell – Polarities in man [1] Now one will say: ‘It is indeed very probable that the matter will finally take such course and that each wound inflicted to the spirit, will become visible in its absolute condition and will react. But after the thorough explanation about the fundamental Hell we still cannot see how such memories of offended loves in this world will then manifest themselves as fundamental Hell in the absolute spiritual condition, for it will be hard to find someone on this Earth who did not personally experience such offenses or caused them. But suppose such lively memories will manifest themselves in the absolute spiritual condition as fundamentally hellish, then we really would like to know how many people will come in Heaven after they lived a century on Earth. [2] Why can such cursed judgment come over man when he actually has to sin in a highly passive condition against a Divine order which he can impossibly maintain because he completely lacks the power which one can only acquire after very long experiences.’ [3] Good, I say, whoever makes such reproach to me, I kindly ask to consider the following a little closer. There he will find proof that I really did not describe who will come into Hell and how many there will be. I only indicated to everyone what appears as purely Hell in man, for not one person on the whole Earth is that perfect that he does not carry the whole Hell in him, as he also carries the whole Heaven in himself. [4] As I sufficiently explained before what Heaven is in man, how it comes into effect in him and how it increases, so I also have to show you how Hell comes into effect in man and how it increases. [5] It would be sad and very merciless if man, since he carries the perfect image of Hell in himself, would also immediately become an inhabitant of that Hell. If that were the case then also all angels would be hellish spirits, for also they carry the perfect image of Hell as image in themselves. Would that not be the case, then it would not be possible for any angel to penetrate that place to calm down the revolting spirits. I myself could not show and reveal Hell to you if it were not completely in me. Besides, it would also be very dangerous for the inhabitants of Heaven if they had not the corresponding image of Hell in them, because then they would not be able to see what Hell is planning against them. [6] So no spirit in the whole Hell can plan something against us which we cannot immediately see in ourselves. [7] Also, Hell and Heaven are in man as two opposite poles without which no existing object can be imagined. [8] Therefore, it is useful that everyone be informed that there was absolutely no question as to who comes into Hell, because that would mean that humanity on Earth is already judged, but only as to what Hell really is. [9] But everyone can understand that such unfaithfulness in love is actually purely hellish from the fact that such unfaithfulness comes basically from self-love and lust for power. [10] Because what is jealousy? Only the awakening of self-love, selfishness and lust for power. A jealous person is not jealous because the chosen one has too little love, but only because the person’s desires become limited, thinking that the chosen one, from whom actually the highest respect was expected, underestimates the person’s value. [11] Question: is this not actually the complete opposite pole of the attitude wherein one – male or female – should totally forget oneself out of neighborly love to be completely ready for the well-being of one’s neighbor? [12] But how can man suppress this fundamental Hell in himself and not make it active but purely passive? [13] This is very easy: the one who offended as well as the one who was offended should, in the name of the Lord, forgive each other wholeheartedly, and the one who offended as well as the one who was offended should bless each other, in the name of the Lord – it is obvious that this should be done in all seriousness. Then the whole Hell in man is already under control. [14] Truly, I say to you: a remorseful glance to our good Father is sufficient to escape Hell for all eternity. Look at the criminal at the cross. He was a robber and a murderer, but then he looked up to the Lord and spoke with a deep and grievous remorse in his heart: ‘O Lord, when You will come into Your Kingdom and will judge great criminals, think about me and punish me not too heavily for the great crimes that I committed.’ [15] And see, the great, almighty Judge spoke to him: ‘Truly, even today you will be with Me in paradise.’ [16] From this true happening every somehow believing Christian can conclude how little there is actually needed to have the completely lowest, mighty Hell under control forever. [17] The example of the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob can be compared to the former one, for the Lord spoke to the woman who had a relation with seven men: ‘Woman, give Me to drink.’ And further: ‘If you would know Who it is who says to you: women, give Me to drink, you should say to Him: ‘give me to drink from the living water, so that I will thirst no more forever.’ These are the true words that were exchanged at that place. [18] Who cannot see the small thing that the Lord asks in return from this sinner for receiving the Kingdom of Heaven: only a drink of water. So will also every Christian, who is somehow familiar with the Scriptures, know what happened to the adulteress and the life of Mary Magdalene. The Lord writes the guilt of the first one twice in the sand and Magdalene was allowed to anoint His feet and was the first person to whom the Lord came after His resurrection. Also the story of the lost son and the search for the hundredth lost sheep, how little He asks from a sinner to receive mercy and compassion. [19] That is why we did not mention who will come into Hell, but only what Hell actually is. CHAPTER 118 Heavenly and hellish principles [1] I already have another one, as you say, in the cross-hairs, who says: It is all right; the viewing of hell can be of use to some of us, but no sooner than until one knows when the hell that appears in man or in a whole human society becomes so positive that it becomes the main polarity, and those in which it is manifesting, really belong to hell. In short, one first needs to know who goes to hell, and how, and when one comes into it, before any particular knowledge of hell can have any worth. He who does not know where he can fall into the hands of the enemy, how and when, is already lost; for where he will think himself most secure, just then he will be attacked by his enemy, and he will certainly be lost without rescue. Therefore, the question is: When does a sinner, irrespective of personality, come to hell and when not? [2] This question can rightfully be asked, because in the Holy Scriptures is so many examples where similar sinners have come to hell and the others have been saved. But I, John, say: this question sounds like it has some wise reason; but it is not the case here. If I would describe the appearance of hell, I indirectly do that to whom hell really belongs. Hopefully, in this depiction, under the concept of hell, one will not think of a positively perverse place in which one can come, but only a state in which a free being can displace himself by his kind of love, through his action. Every human being who is only able to reasonably mature, will easily grasp with his hands, that a man will belong to hell as long as he acts according to his principles. Their principles, however, are: domination, self-love and selfishness. These three are exactly contrary to the heavenly principles, which are: humility, love for God and love for neighbor. [3] How easy is it to distinguish one from another, even easier than distinguishing the night from the day. Anyone who wants to know clearly whether he belongs to hell or heaven, ask his inner mind carefully. Say this one by one to the foundational inclination and love: This is mine and that is mine too; that is what I want and what I want to do; this fish is mine and the other I want to catch too; give me everything, because I want, yes, I want everything. Wherever the mind lets itself be heard as such, there is hell still the positive pole. [4] But when the mind says, "Nothing is mine, neither this nor that, everything is the other's and I am not worth the least, and if I have or will have something, it should not be mine, but my brother's - if that is the inner answer of the mind, heaven is the positive pole. [5] Therefore, if one has chosen a maiden, and another chooses her too, and the first is soon full of the most intense jealousy, and the second is also admitted, the pole of hell is already prevalent in him. But if the first one says: My love, you alone are your heart's mistress. I truly love you, therefore I do not want a sacrifice from you, but I am prepared to bring you every sacrifice for your own good; that's why you are completely free from me. Do what you want and how you feel good; You will never lose my sincere love and friendship. Because if I force your hand into my hand, I would only love me in you and would like to make you a slave. But I do not love myself in you, but you alone in me. Therefore, from my point of view, you have the complete freedom to choose whomever you deem most suitable for your happiness. [6] See, from this language, the citizen of heaven already shines, for that is the speech of heaven. And whoever can speak such from the bottom of his heart, has no positive drop of hell left in it. [7] Those who can deny themselves at this most delicate point, can deny themselves even more in other less delicate issues. But whoever becomes jealous, and at once breaks love with his beloved, curses her in his heart with contempt, resentment, and anger, and also meets his rival, already acts from hell, which then clearly forms the positive pole in his heart. [8] The rule for the heavenly man is this: whoever sees in whatever the love of his neighbour is engaged in, is to withdraw immediately and he is to set no limits to his neighbour against the realisation of his love; for it is better to go empty-handed at every opportunity in the world than to gain anything by some, if insignificant, struggle. [9] For the more one sacrifices here, the more he will find beyond. He who sacrifices a woolen robe here, will find a golden one there; he who sacrifices two will find ten there, and whoever sacrifices a chosen virgin here will meet a hundred immortals there. Anyone who gives away even a meager piece of land here will be given a whole world there. Anyone who has helped one here will stretch out their arms beyond that and help them into eternal life! - And so nobody will lose something that he sacrifices here. He who sows abundantly will also reap abundantly, but he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. [10] I suppose that might be enough to make it quite palpable to anyone when hell or when heaven becomes a positive pole. And so nobody will need to come up with the ridiculous question: who is going to hell or to heaven, and how and when does one get into it? Because nobody comes neither to hell nor to heaven, but everyone carries both in oneself. [11] If hell is positive, the whole man already makes hell, as he lives and exists; but if heaven is positive, then the whole man is heaven itself, as he lives and exists. And so no one needs to ask: what does it look like in heaven and hell, but everyone looks at their own polarity, and he'll see exactly what it looks like either in hell or in heaven. [12] For there is nowhere a place called heaven or hell, but all that is in every human self; and no one will ever go to another heaven or another hell, which he carries in himself. [13] You have sufficiently convinced yourself how we were in that central sun and have seen miracles there. Where was this sun? In you! Where are we now? According to the appearance, on the spiritual sun; but in reality in yourselves. [14] How this is possible is shown to you by every dream; and of that you have already received the most substantial treatises, and it is just this (with the exception of the dream, where existence is undecided) with the greatest, clearest decisiveness in the absolute spiritual state. To understand this more thoroughly, let's look at a few examples. CHAPTER 119 The spirit as the creator of his own world [1] A good landscape painter and at the same time a great friend of beautiful country outings, comes home from a country party. He likes the area he saw on this trip so much that he wants to stay in it forever. His business, however, does not allow such. What is left for him, therefore, to at least sometimes see the most beautiful part of his country? He paints this area with great skill on two empty, large walls of his living-room so admirably, that each visitor recognizes with astonishment, instantly, the glorious, well-known region. [2] Question: From where did our painter take the example for this area? Did he have any copperplate engraving? Or did he himself made a sketch of the place earlier? No, neither one nor the other, but he has captured the living contours of the area in his imagination and faithfully reproduced them here on the wall. [3] That's right, and every human being sees the possibility of it; but certainly not every person can see how our painter has brought the beautiful region to the wall in his imagination. So here's the question: how and in what way did this painter put the area on the wall of his imagination? See, this is an important life process and says a lot; Therefore, we want to illuminate it a little bit closer. On some occasion, we have come to know and see our central sun as clearly as possible, which is all present in the spirit of man. If it were not present in the human spirit, how could he ever conceive of that idea and make any idea what no mortal eye has ever beheld? [4] But now man can achieve in himself incomprehensibly high and super-sensoric spiritual intuitions, and thus he must have in himself everything that a fantasy can ever produce. [5] But a person's imagination can be pure and impure. It is pure when, albeit in a rarer case, the immortal spirit of man already stands so absolutely in his body that his pure images are not tarnished and polluted by the images of the outside world. Thus imagination, too, can be pure through the conception of mere external images, if it holds the images seen through the power of the soul and then faithfully reproduces them on occasion. Imagination is impure if the spirit is still too passive in its body, both regarding its inner images and to those of the external world, where everything then mixes up, the spiritual and natural, and no one can become wise if the fantasy presents the spiritual or the natural. To this class of impure imaginative images belong all those medieval mystical obscenities (indecencies), according to which the heaven have received its strange form, the hell and the so-called purgatory became a roasting oven, and more such follies. [6] From this, however, it appears that in the spirit, which constitutes the whole life of the soul as well as the body, everything must be present from the smallest to the greatest, which embraces all infinity, heaven and hell, and between these two extremes, the whole natural world. And this endlessly living faculty of the spirit is what you call the "fantasy" in the general sense. [7] If someone wants to bring something out of this rich room, he only need to arouse his love. The stronger the love becomes, the more violent is its flame and the more violent its warmth and its light. [8] Through this quality of love, the image captured by it becomes alive itself, becomes more and more distinct through the light of love, until at last, like the region of our painter, it has attained full maturity. And this image, perfected by the quality of love in man himself, is the real inner world of the spirit. [9] Now we know where the painter took the picture from. That is something already, but we do know a little more, and that is that this is the way by which the spirit is the creator of its own world. [10] But we also know that everything in the world can be good or bad accordingly, and that is what love makes of it. If love is in accordance with the order of God, everything becomes good through it; if this is against the order of God, everything will become bad through it. In this way every human being develops either heaven or hell in himself. [11] Every act and action must have a foundation and in and of itself a certain form or better ceremony under which it happens. [12] But how does one imagine an area on earth where you can find monuments of many atrocities? Surely, when you would see this, a secret shudder will strike you. See, that is already the form of the hellish; for in spirit in the hereafter, such a world is also formed, which is full of monuments of atrocities. In this world, the spirit sees infinite depths, and in them, its incorrigible evil behavior. But it is very different when you come to an area where noble people have always lived, who did many good and noble things. It will seem very familiar to you, and it will give you a feeling of transfiguration, as if you were in the bosom of Abraham. This is an anticipation of heaven. In the absolutely spiritual state, feeling and its form are expressed in the most vivid form. This form is the spiritual place of Heaven and, as you can easily see, is also a work of the spirit. [13] But it is clear from this that every man, through the nature of his love, becomes the creator of his own inner world, and that he can never enter any heaven or hell, but only the work of his love. This is why it also says, 'And your works follow you.' And in just this way, as we have now undergone the apparition of hell, our well-known students of the Sun pass it by. What will happen to them after that, we will consider next. CHAPTER 120 Further development of the students in the beyond. The Middle Kingdom (Hades) [1] Do they come, as you say, from hell back to heaven? That would be very earthly spoken, because these students never actually go to hell, but only into the state, in their own sphere, to look at it. It creates nothing more than a just revulsion of the antipolar or infernal state, and our students are back again in their true positive heavenly sphere. But since heaven cannot be attained only by insights and recognition, nor by a nun-kind of inactive love of prayer and reverence, but only by the works of love, which gives a fruitful good for the neighbour, our disciples must, in order to reach the true heaven, now also let themselves go into a seriously active state. [2] But what does this consist of? We could answer that in a few words. Look at the natural-spiritual sphere of your earth or the so-called "middle realm", which also bears the name "Hades", and is about what you Romans believe, admittedly very wrong, under the purgatory. This kingdom can best be compared to a large entrance hall, where all enter without distinction of rank and office, and to a certain extent prepare themselves for further entry into the actual guest quarters. [3] So even this Hades is that first natural-spiritual state of man into which he comes immediately after death. [4] For no one will either go to heaven or to hell at once, unless in the first case anyone on earth would either have to be completely born again out of the pure love of the Lord, or in the second case he would have to be a most malevolent offender against the Holy Spirit. In the first case, therefore, heaven would be attained without entry into the middle realm, in the second case, but the lowest hell is to be expected. Heaven in the first case, because such a man already carries him in the highest perfection, and in the second case, hell, because such a man has become emptied of all heavenly things. But that is just a side note that does not matter; Therefore we do not want to stay any longer, but immediately turn our eyes to where and what our students are dealing with. [5] This large Middle Kingdom is the main workshop for all heavenly spirits. Everyone has much to do there. For think of this place, which receives every hour of your day about five to seven thousand newcomers. These must be immediately tested and brought to the place that is perfectly suited to them, or they must be immediately led into such a state, which coincides with their basic love in them. Therefore, they must be explored and tested in all their inclinations. Wherever they tend to most, that is the way which must also be spiritually opened to them. [6] Of course, that does not happen in the world; for that would be the strongest so-called St.Simonism, which in no time would want to turn the whole earth into a robber's and murderer's nest. But in the realm of the spirits it is precisely this St. Simonism that is observed, and everyone can consequently pursue his inclination unhindered. [7] It will of course be said here: If it happens like that, who will then go to heaven? There it is different; It is said that every doctor must know his patient from the bottom of his heart before he can prescribe a medicine for him to foundationally heal him. Because on the other hand, nobody is served anything with a palliative cure. So must, in the beyond, every newcomer make a general confession of his life from A to Z. Only after this has happened, a change of state, which means the perfect revelation, happens. In this state, every spirit stands completely naked and then enters a third state, which is called the desolation, and probably the killing off of all the sensorial that man has brought with from the world. [8] Only then does the spiritual man come to heaven, or, in the worst case, into the first hell. [9] My predecessor showed you sufficiently in the evening region what this resort of cleansing looks like, when you found yourself in the pitch-dark area among the "moss-eaters". You have seen visually clear how these spirits then gradually get into the first heaven, or even into the first hell. [10] We can now therefore immediately solve the question of what on all these occasions, our students actually get to do. Their business is exploring and opening the ways to places of cleansing. In this they have for the time being nothing more to do; because more advanced angelic spirits need to take care of the further work. [11] But how does such exploration and the opening of the way happen? We have previously touched on the so-called St. Simonism and now want to present the case in a nutshell as clear as possible. And so listen: [12] Every human being who has lived here according to his duties of profession and who has been provided with all so-called spiritual goods upon his departure from this world, immediately asks for heaven. He, too, is evidently at once elevated to a state which, for him, is the heavenly resort. [13] But such heaven is always represented in its truth, which is truly different from what the newcomer has brought over in his well-founded (fixed) idea. But that he does not like such a heaven any more than some of the present bishops, prelates, and other spiritual dignitaries would like, when they would suddenly have to take the plow with their own hands for the benefit of their brothers, is very easy to understand. [14] Therefore, even such a heavenly guest, who does not feel well in such a "true" heaven, demands the same again. And as he returns to his usual state, he immediately seeks in himself what have pleased him most on earth. He finds, for example, that beautiful women and girls were his greatest joy on earth. He soon notices the spirits who investigate and guide him, and they propose that this would not do for heaven, for his desire is impure. But there he protests and says: Just put me to the test, let me go to the most beautiful women and girls, and I will have a good conversation with them. After such an utterance, the guest will be promptly invited. He is led exactly to those states in which he is gradually quite bodily in all the scenes that has given him so much pleasure in the world. Here, however, the (guiding) spirits disappears and let him act alone, but always under their observation, which he is not aware of. [15] That the guest here repeats all his scenes hardly needs mentioning. But what happens to him and what is the business of our spirits - we shall see in the sequel. CHAPTER 121 Every life has certain ways determined by Jesus [1] If the guest has undergone such a scene of one of his principal passions, then he usually becomes filled with disgust for such a fleeting pleasure, by convincing himself that there is nothing real about it. You must know that such spirits also have sexual intercourse in the hereafter; but instead of pleasure, they feel a very significant pleasure-pain, and this peculiarity makes them all the more feel disgust for their passion. [2] But if such a passion is defeated in this way, then the spirit seeks something else in itself, which otherwise pleases him in the world, for example a game. If that is the case, he longs for a gaming company. This is granted to him. He comes among well-known friends, and their first meeting requires nothing more than the quick arrangement of a game. And immediately he is put into the state in which he finds everything that is needed for playing as in his own home in the world: cards, money, and the like. The game begins, but usually ends with the loss of all his money and home. It goes without saying that he thereby gets hatred for the game; but unfortunately also for the players who took everything from him. But once again, our guide is immediately at hand, showing him the nothingness of his passion and how he distances himself more and more from God instead of approaching Him. [3] In this way, does everything that he has done since his childhood turns up again for our new guest. Even music, when it constitutes a more sensual passion and is more than a profit-driven activity, operates there in the same way as an evil passion and is worked out in the same way. Even painting and poetry; in short, everything that has led mankind in the world, at any rate of excellence, to a look of pride, must be carried out in a similar way. [4] But in the end the spirit must do all this voluntarily, for no one is ever compelled to do something in whatever way, but he must so to speak force himself and judge himself! [5] And this is the business of these angelic guiding spirits, who gradually introduce each newcomer into himself completely and let him find all that he has only ever absorbed in his whole life on earth: first the grosser things, and then the better things. [6] Many, especially the Roman faith (Catholic), will not find this very reasonable, because for the time being he does not want to know anything about the confessed sins, and secondly, he believes in a special judgment, which the Lord personally performs with every deceased right after death. [7] He will not easily accept that the Lord never judges anyone, least of all in the spirit world. It would be even more likely to be accepted on the material world if one wants to accept the manifold chastisements of god-forgotten people as a judgment, but in the spirit world all this ends. The mind is completely free and can do whatever he wants. But his own deeds are his only judge, for as his love is, so are his deeds, and so his life. [8] The only thing which is eternally fixed by the Lord, is that every life has its definite ways beyond which it can never go. But these ways are so intimately intertwined with the nature of life that they constitute life with life itself. If one were to cut off such a path for someone, he cuts off his freedom and thus also his life. Such a cutting off, would really be a judgment that would bring death to every spirit. [9] At the same time, however, the Lord Himself would no longer be completely free, if He would take away the full liberty of only one spirit; just as a Judge is no longer free and has judged himself as soon as he condemns only one person to prison. For if he is otherwise free in his activity, then he is already limited in this one; for, as much as the languishes in prison, the judgment of the judge languishes, and may not be freed from the prison before the prisoner himself is freed. In the material world, such imprisonment does not seem very plausible, but it becomes more plausible and active in the spiritual world. [10] It is true that the Lord has set a perfect goal for every head and original life, according to His infinite love and mercy; and this goal is again not a judgment but only a collecting point, where every spirit should fully recover its scattered life and its activities. Such a place could be either hell or heaven and it is therefore the main business of our well-known angelic spirits in the middle kingdom to guide the spirits in their full freedom to one or the other goal. [11] We have already seen how this guidance happens, and what happens afterwards with the guided spirit, we also know. - All that remains for us to know, is what our guiding spirits will have to do after this work. CHAPTER 122 Continued education of the students through the planets and the seven spheres of the sun, to their heavenly destination [1] This, too, will not cost us much effort, for we must only remember that there is still a very large number of other earth bodies besides this earth on which, like on this earth, free beings dwell. This will make it easy to find out what occupation is coming up next for our spirits. Every earth body belongs to some whole planetary system; and each one whole planetary system stands among themselves spiritually and naturally in a reciprocal connection and interaction. [2] However, the planetary system belonging to your sun, is the first into which our spirits enter. First up is the moon. Of course, more than a punitive teaching than a freeing one is taught to these spirits. So these spirits are here comparable what you are the elementary teachers who hold in addition to the textbook, a rod of correction in their hands. [3] You know very well why this is necessary here. You also know what the moon looks like, what it means to its inhabitants, and how they are taught. And so we have nothing more to say about it. [4] From there, these teachers and their students do not immediately go to heaven, but into the spiritual sphere of the planet Mercury, where there are already higher teachers. From Mercury they then go to Venus; from this for the sake of greater humility, to Mars. For those who have not yet adopted the just degree of humiliation in Mars, then a detour is made into what you call the four small planets. But in those who have already adopted a great degree of humility in Mars, an elevation to Jupiter is immediately accomplished. From Jupiter they first enter into the exceedingly beautiful Saturn, from there into Uranus and finally into the already known last planet under the name Miron (Neptune), but it goes without saying, everywhere only into the spiritual sphere of these planets. [5] Somebody here could ask: is that the usual way, which all spirits have to be guided to finally reach heaven? [6] Oh, no, I say, only those people enter here who were very natural and vainly sensual under the direction of the spirits known to us. These must be guided on the somewhat lengthy scientific way into the love and wisdom of the Lord; and that is because the natural sensuality of man is a consequence of the taking up of that effect which is called planetary in humans. [7] No human being is passively obliged to absorb this planetary effect; but if he is enabled by the stimulation of the flesh and other pleasurable sensualities, then he also absorbs such influences half-suffering and half-active. But since these influences are mostly sensorial, they are bad; and man can, in his spiritual corresponding possession, not enter the kingdom of heaven until he is freed from all these obsessions. [8] For example, an exaggerated desire to travel and to trade and influence of Mercury, as he was already known as such with the ancient wise men. Venus depicts the beautiful spiritual 'being in love', as it was already known to the ancient wise; Mars, the battle and desire to rule, as also the old wise men knew; Jupiter an exaggerated pedantic ambition, according to profound erudition; Saturn, an easy excitability of the passions; from Uranus a great love of pomp and from Miron an exaggerated desire to all sorts of arts such as music, poetry, painting, mechanics, industry of all kinds and the like. [9] It is not as if the human of the earth would have received such from the planets; but man originally has all this in a just degree in himself and can also awaken and use it in his own right. But when man throws himself too much on one or the other branch, he exceeds the measure of the influence of such a planet, because he particularly emphasizes the self-supporting planet and surrenders himself to its influence. It is precisely through the awakening of his special passion, that he allows unhindered communication to the mutual interacting polarities, which is not difficult to grasp for the one who has noticed something of my first explanation of the cause of vision, that no one can see what he is not in himself. For this very reason, such spirits must then go through the planetary journey and, to a certain extent, again deposit the strangeness there on the scientific path of experience, from where they have taken it. [10] When they have finished, they come into the sun, in which they again have to experience all the same planetary qualities to their principal foundations. Only after completion of such school, they become the lesser guards of the little children. [11] But the leaders become chief teachers here. And if they have undergone the school to perfection, only then will they be received as citizens of the holy city of Jerusalem, where they must first be by far the least, and must be guided by the chief citizens in all the great heavenly affairs which in number, a world full of books would not hold! For as the creations of the Lord are infinite, so infinitely branched are the affairs of the angels of the highest heaven. [12] Now you know the whole progress and the finite determination of the child spirit angels and therefore also know the spiritual arrangement of the sun. - And so my teaching is over for you too. Therefore return to where the Lord Himself awaits you! CHAPTER 123 Review of the ten viewed spirit spheres [1] The Lord: Now you are here again: Do you not want to announce to Me in your mind what all you have seen, experienced and thus learned in My John? You are now fully respectful of Me and say in yourselves: What shall we tell You, O Lord, to You, to whom our thoughts were already known, before we thought them, even more so than a sun, which attracts the rays from the vast infinity, to let it shine out again with multiple increased strength? [2] Yes, my dear children, you are right, the Father knows everything, but nevertheless he likes to talk to His children as if He did not know everything. But I see in you a secret question and this is so: [3] O Father, You, eternal Love and Truth! Incredibly great and wonderful over all human concepts is what we have seen, experienced and learned from the first to the last in the spheres of Your angelic spirits. But now do we want to hear from You a sacred word that tells us whether all that really is the full truth? [4] See, My dear children, this is your secret question, and I answer you therefore: Right at the beginning, when we have looked at the outer dial of our clock, or rather the outer sphere of the spiritual sun, I have told you, as the heavens and the whole spiritual world does not represent itself locally to the point of appearance, but they are, like all spiritual worlds, in the spirit themselves. Or: the sphere of life of a spirit is its world, which it inhabits. [5] I showed you to convince you, a parable where you saw a so-called diorama. By these parables have I then, in a specific order, led the ten spirits still present here, and showed you how you will also meet a spiritual diorama there and, in the sphere of each spirit, you have found a different picture of the spiritual world for contemplation. [6] Such was then also the case; as you have now been ten times convinced, as you have seen the spiritual sphere of each of these ten angelic spirits, every time in a very different form. This is more than clear as daylight before you; and I have added to you that you can repeatedly go through this spiritual diorama in the same spirits, and you will see the spiritual world again in a completely different form. [7] So you can also enter the spheres of other spirits, and in each such sphere you would again see a very different form of the spiritual world, both in their individual circumstances and in their total existence. However, looking at it, I cannot give you a general answer to your question, except that I say to you, it is here in all things! Like the seed, so the fruit, as the works, so the reward, and as the love as the foundation of works, so is the form of the world, which they create in themselves spiritually. [8] Although you have looked at different forms, you still have one and the same truth everywhere. For the form does not lie, but everything is only in truth. [9] And so I did not want to show you what the heaven, the spiritual world or hell look like, but only how it all evolves into the nature of the love in every human spirit. [10] For that reason, you have looked at thousands of forms to an overwhelming degree, and in every form, the inner truth has been made known to you. And thus I can tell you that in the sphere of truth, you have seen the whole extent of spiritual life. [11] But as far as it concerns the forms, they go so far into the infinite, that in the eternities of eternities you will not be able to see the least part of them! - And so you can be content with a perfectly calm mind in the fullness of the truth; especially if I tell you that, as long as this earth has been inhabited by human beings, the spiritual conditions of life have never before been revealed as comprehensively and completely as this time. [12] Whatever one seeks, in whatever circumstances he is, in this revelation he can exactly find to an atom, how things are with himself. [13] Whoever reads this with deep attention and great devotion will find the great, convincing truth not only in this solar revelation, but alive in himself. [14] But in order that everyone may find everything in themselves to be completely true, I will add in the short sequel some parables and pictures, which shall illuminate the secret corners of this revelation. - For today therefore, My blessing, and therefore good! CHAPTER 124 Every human being carries a different grain-seed for the development of the spiritual world [1] If you read the gospel, you will easily find under which general pictures I Myself represented the kingdom of heaven. Among the parables is the one of the mustard seed. This parable is also the one that is most suitable here. Small is this grain; Who sees the tree-like plant in it? But this mustard seed carries a whole infinity of its kind in itself. Countless identical mustard granules can emerge from one. But sow countless such mustard seeds into the soil, and you will probably get all the same plants from it. But as far as the certain symmetry of the form is concerned, one trunk will not resemble the other, just as little as you are capable of finding two perfectly symmetrical leaves on the same tree. [2] Whoever grasps this example from this point of view will certainly draw the conclusion from it and say: There is nothing in the symmetrical form, which could be called a permanent or constant one; for whether a leaf comes out on this or that point of the trunk, or of a branch and twig, whether it is a little bit larger or smaller, or if the trunk itself grows higher or lower in the ground, more or less branches and twigs shoot, and these always in a different order. It does not matter if only the substance of the plant and its usefulness remain one and the same. [3] See, this is basically nothing other than what I say to you: there is nothing inherent in the form or the appearance of the spirit world, if only all these infinitely different forms and phenomena have one and the same truth and one and the same purpose as foundation. [4] And so each man carries in himself a different grain for the development of the spiritual world, which rises in him and finally becomes a tree, which is the form of the inner world. [5] If you sow different seeds into the earth and into one and the same earth, do you suppose that similar plants would grow, or that even one and the same kind of seed would produce completely identical plants? Oh no, everywhere the same and at least with similar seeds, only a slightly different outer form. [6] But despite all this, does the basic material remains the same; and you can chemically analyze all matter as much as you want and can, and yet at the final result, you will not come to anything but two primordial materials, the well-known very volatile carbon and the binding oxygen. [7] See, that is again equal to the fundamental truth and the primary purpose of all probability of form in the realm of spirits. [8] Everywhere there is only one God, one Father, one Love, one Wisdom, and out of it comes the infinite as the eternal! [9] Behold the clouds that are drifting in the air over your earth every day. Have you ever discovered a consistent form in them? Will you see it the same in the evenings as it is in the morning or the next day or in the next year? [10] Endlessly different are the changing forms of the clouds; You never see the very same ones you have already seen. But is this confusing to you in your existence? Certainly not, for whatever the cloud may float in the air, whatever it may be, there remains only one cloud, as one truth, and its purpose is to give the rain, and that too in one and the same way if all the conditions are right to produce the rain. [11] And so here again is nothing in the form, but only on the rationale and the purpose. [12] In general, as far as the apparent being is concerned, its ever-changing form is there only for the awakening of the spirit, which finds in it its feeling of bliss. For under an eternally perfect monotony everything would sink into eternal sleep. [13] But man must seek his salvation and bliss not in form, but in reality, in truth. As far as form is concerned, I have provided from eternity for its everlasting, ever renewing change of form; and it also applies to the basic text from the gospel: [14] "Above all, seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness; Everything else will be added unto you." [15] So do not ask this or that: What does heaven look like and how the spirit world? Because all that is vain! But seek to make every word of Me alive in you through the works of love; and then you already have heaven alive in you and everything that is in the spirit world. [16] Because no one will ever 'go to' heaven, who will look like he has, in one way or another, taken it into his memory and imagination. Each one carries within himself his own heaven and his own world of spirits, the form of which will always be governed by the kind of love that is in him and by the works that have come out of it. [17] Somebody wants to make the figure of an apple tree perfectly recognisable to a stranger by speaking to him: Behold, there is an apple tree before us; Remember exactly the height and thickness of the trunk, the exact location of its branches and twigs, as well as the leaves and the bark, and you will recognise every apple tree that perfectly corresponds to this shape. The so trained teaches the shape of the tree exactly and thus goes into a large tree garden, which consists of nothing but apple trees. He adapts his recorded form everywhere; but since he does not find them completely the same, there is no apple tree in this tree garden for him. [18] So nobody should justify themselves in any way; because he will always leave empty. But if he takes the matter in the spirit of truth, he will find the truth under every form, and the way and the life! [19] This thing is of great importance; therefore should all this given here be well thought through by everyone, and it should be tested, so that he may find the true foundations of his wisdom. So it is and will be forever true and good. For closer illumination, some more examples will follow! CHAPTER 125 The kingdom of heaven is like the present time [1] As for "the kingdom of heaven," it corresponds to your present time, which is again equal to the sower in the gospel, who scattered good seed, part of it on the way, part in the bushes, part on the rocky ground and only a part fell on good soil. [2] Look at your time, is it not like the sower and the kingdom of heaven? [3] The word is being sowed everywhere; everywhere awakened people still live, who explain the word from the internal perspective. But the needs of mankind in the present time have become equal to the way in which the seed falls, or: they have become purely secular. That's why the word makes such an impression on them as like throwing peas at a wall, as none will get caught and even less take root in the hard, steep and smooth soil. [4] Therefore, I may send down all the angels of heaven and proclaim through them the Word of life everywhere in the most wonderful way - today, tomorrow, and the day after, people will be shocked, they will hear and accept, but afterwards they will begin to look at the miracle indifferently, and will continue to run their world business as before. [5] These are the industrial people and their never-to-be-satisfied needs. They are like bushes and thorns. Even if the word germinates at the beginning, it is soon stifled, and afterwards, these people become more indifferent to the same word than before. Only then will they say: If only we received it in a really wonderful way, then we would believe and do accordingly. But I grant even this wish. I sow it almost everywhere in a wonderful way, like here. But what does it do? It moves at most here and there some to political objections; that is about it. But that someone wants to turn to it - this good soil - where are they? [6] I say: where hundreds of millions of people live, it would be far too much said if a thousand would truly want to come to life. What use then that among ten or hundred thousands, who may well listen believingly, but when it comes to action, they procrastinate from one day to the other; because they say: why should one make an effort to achieve eternal life? If there is an eternal life, as they believe it, then it will probably not be difficult to achieve it; Therefore, let us live happily and in the end, die happily! What else do we need? [7] There we have the stony and sandy soil together. It probably receives the seed, and half of it germinates; but the soil has no moisture, and so, in the end, even what has germinated, perishes! [8] Faith alone therefore never remains unless it is animated by the deed; just as pure theory without actual practice and application of the same, nobody becomes a practical person. [9] So now you can find a legion other talkers upholding opinions about moral and religious issues. But all these talkers do not want to become practical and do not touch a pebble with a finger. Everyone believes that he has done something extraordinarily meritorious, if he has only preached well and, through his moral and religious chatter, at best managed some stupid devotees and enthusiasts. [10] But no one seriously wants to try the paths through which he could directly get to connect with Me Myself and then get from My mouth a living teaching that could firstly transform his earth into good soil. [11] There are a great many theologians and theosophists, but there is barely one, who was really taught by God according to the Gospel of John, which states that all should be taught by God! [12] Truly, if I do not want to shake someone out of my great mercy here and there, just as a diligent master of the house vexes his lazy and sluggish servant, then from the times of the apostles, almost no one knows what "the living word" is and what it means to be "taught by God" [13] The present theologians put Me rather mysteriously above all the stars and let Me sit there in a completely inaccessible light. Why do they do that? They do that for different reasons. The first would for example be: Far away is out of our way. The second would be that no one is thus able to approach God in such a way that he could be taught by Him. Another reason, based on the previous one, is that God has given reason and understanding to man; that is the living Word of God in man. He who turns to it, lives according to the will of God, and whoever develops his understanding and reason, is already taught by God; for no one can be taught directly by God, but only indirectly, because God dwells above all stars in inaccessible light. [14] If, then, I now and then awaken someone in opposition to these mysterious theosophical theses, who then receives a direct, living word from Me, then he is declared by the greater part of present-day humanity to be a fool and a swindler, sometimes even a deceiver and a charlatan, who understands how to profit from the capabilities of his mind. Say if this is not so? [15] It is not unknown to you that different men received the living Word, and even those of this time, from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as some from earlier centuries. But what is its lot? The silent oblivion. It is enough for the learned world to know their names. But what these men have taught out of Me, they do not care for. And though there are some who read a book here and there, they soon come up with sentences that do not agree with their reason. Therefore, they soon reject the whole and let our man, who has been taught by Me, rest. [16] If all goes well, then met will at most grant Me alone some justice; but My messengers are nothing but fools and deceivers. [17] Is not your time like this? I mean, anyone can grab that by hand. [18] But since the kingdom of heaven is not a locality anywhere, but only a complete state of life, the kingdom of heaven is also perfectly equal to your time, namely, this time, namely barren, poor, small, rare. [19] And wherever it still is, it is not pure. But will that be a kingdom of heaven, if it is not completely pure? I tell you, the Kingdom of Heaven is very relative in this respect, and that is because every fool likes his cap best. [20] Everyone finds his kingdom of heaven in his stupidity. Whether it is the truth out of Me, that is another question. It has truly become rare, barren and sparse. Why? Because people have run out of good soil! Therefore I may also now sow the very best and purest seed, as I will, but it nevertheless falls on nothing but ways, between thorns and on stony soils, here and there in a crack on the way. Thus, from among one million grains which fell into a stone chasm, about a thousand germinates and a hundred reach maturity. And that is then the whole harvest and the kingdom of heaven! Surely that is barren, rare and sparse! [21] From this you can again see that all that has been said so far has its good reason, that the superficial appearance of the spiritual has as little to it than the phenomena of the time. They are deaf and hollow, but to the wise they are a Scripture, from the basics of which he easily finds the inner truth; for every apparition is preceded by an effective reason. If the appearance is noble and good, the foundation will be the same; but if the appearance is ignoble, that is, worldly, material, and evil, then its reason will be of the same measure. [22] Whoever wants to see everything spiritual in its true form, does not bind himself to the appearance, but uses it only for the study of the spiritual foundation. If he finds it, then he has the whole essence of all spirit worlds. But how this is to be explored out of the visible, is to be shown below. CHAPTER 126 A tree as an example of the nature of the spirit kingdom [1] In the course of the whole communication about the realm of the spiritual sun-kingdom, every single smallest relation has been shown in this respect; how the spirit-world is connected with the natural; and therefore one could easily say: in order to be able to get by means of these phenomena to the foundation, it would be almost unnecessary to say anything more, as this subject has been adequately illuminated in the course of the whole communication in all its branches. [2] But I say: Man never has too much of the good; but rather of the bad. For much good often does not improve the bad; but a little bad can often spoil much good! [3] And so we also want to illuminate our present subject as clearly as possible through many illustrative examples. [4] Look at a tree. Its essence, as it is there, represents to you as a corresponding appearance, the whole essence of the spirit world in its relation to the natural world. [5] The inmost of this tree, the core, is the heavenly; the trunk, the branches, and the twigs are the real spiritual kingdom, which has its life from the inner nuclei. Over above the wood of the trunk you will see the bark, which is the outer appearance of the tree. The bark in and of itself is dead; but below the outer dead bark is another bark, which you call "the living." This is equal to the state of connection, where the spiritual merges with the material. [6] Consider the effect of this bark. Out of it, the outer dead bark first emerges, and again out of this living bark emerge all the transient foliage, as well as the outer form of the blossom, and finally even the outer shell of the fruit. [7] None of these products are lasting; they fall off after they have rendered their services [8] See, that's how it is with the world and everything you belong to. All this is like the outer bark, the leaves and flowers, but also the fruits of a tree. These fall off. But the tree, in its inner life, consists and bears the infinite, external appearance of the visible and transient. But how can one infer from the apparent to the inner true foundation? I say: the easiest thing in the world. If you would only let yourself imagine what is manifested in you, and at the same time present it in an effective manner, you have the foundation of the spiritual already before you. [9] The main reason, however, is to be found by looking at the whole number of years of the vegetative action of a tree. It consists in nothing other than in the constant expansion and ever-increasing strengthening of life. [10] Quite simply, this is placed in a single small seed in the ground. Which vital force is originally in this seed, like with an acorn nut, every human being can test if he takes such a nut in his hands and can play with it like a feather-down. [11] But when this insignificant acorn nut is laid into the earth, the vegetative life begins to strengthen in it. A young oak tree with at most two leaves is visible first. In this first stage, the vegetative life of the developing oak tree is still weak. It hardly exceeds the weight of the previous smooth oak nut tenfold. But let's just look at it thirty years later. Then it has already acquired such a powerful vegetative life force, that you can tie several horses to its trunk, and they will not be able to wrest it from the ground with their enormous power. But consider it at the age of one hundred years. What a huge, majestic tree, and what a stormy, proud power in him! How many thousandfold has this hundred-year-old oak reproduced its original little vegetative life in the same acorns, and how powerfully has it, through its waste and thus with its excess of its vegetative vitality, fertilized the soil, and animated it for the constant increase of its own vitality! [12] In short, such a tree has become a world full of life. And all this came from a single insignificant acorn nut. [13] See, so originally only a small spark of life force goes out from Me, equipped with the ability to infinitely strengthen and empower itself as a life force. And this is precisely what makes this appearance of the tree serviceable to everyone's clearest insight. [14] We said before: From the living bark, does the apparent foliage, the outer flower and even the shell of the fruit, emerge. In the fruit itself, the germ of the seed receives only a very small spark from the general life of the tree core. The kernel, together with the fruit, ripens and represents the human being in his worldly likelihood. Very simple and plain is the external appearance, and small is his strength. But he is equal to an acorn nut. When he is placed in the good soil of My will, his inner germ will awaken, and the latter will itself become a mighty tree, whose power surpasses the power of countless former acorns. [15] And, behold, every man already has in himself the germ of his spiritual state, which is the true spirit-world. He is in this world a little life, which should strengthen itself to a sun of life. From its atom-sized life germs should develop a huge, powerful tree of life. And so it is. [16] Just as the acorn-nut bears innumerable forests of gigantic trees, all of which can develop from the single seed, so too, man in his seemingly small life in this world carries with him, infinite strength and potential. [17] It says in the Gospel, where it is told about the one who buried his talent, is said: "I know that you are a strict man and you want to reap, where you have not sown. Where you placed one, you want to win a thousand; so I buried the talent so that I may give it to you, as you have given me. [18] But then the master of talents says: "Oh, you miserable servant! Since you know that I am an unrighteous man and I want to reap, where I did not sow, why did not you give the talent for a moneychanger, which would have given me good usury percentages? [19] See, from this passage it seems quite clear that I am spreading out the life in the smallest possible parts out of Me into the endless realms of My kingdom being, in order to get back an excessively increased potentiated weight of life from each of these smallest life-parts. [20] This is the true innermost cause of all spiritual life: But am I really a hard, self-serving, unjust looter? Oh no! For there is nowhere else to live except in Me, and this for the simple reason that there has never been an existence "outside" of Me! I am the eternal Source of all life! [21] What would happen to life in the times upon times, if this original Source would want to dry up all life? See, all life would vanish into the infinite, and nothing would remain in the end but an eternally empty, dark, dead infinity! [22] But if I, as the Primordial Source of all life Myself, would return into Myself every single moment, becoming infinitely more powerful and strong, then all partial life, which is expressed in every created human, yes even in infinity, is nourished and strengthened. [23] The stronger the father, the stronger the children. The ant is likely to produce ephemerides, but not eagles and lions. Everywhere the weak produces the weak and the strong, the strong. But as the weak never produce strong things, so strong does never produce anything weak. An eagle is never the creator of a fearful dove and a hare cannot boast, as if the lion were its creator. [24] But if you are the children of an almighty Father and have the germ of life of the Father in you, strengthen this germ in the good soil of My will, and make strong the Father in you, then you will also be strong in the Father. For the Father does not demand your strength for Himself, but for Himself He demands it, so that you, too, should become perfect, as He Himself is perfect in Himself, or in heaven. [25] See, this is a picture of how you can infer from outer appearance to the inner ground of life. Next, another picture for the same purpose! [26] CHAPTER 127 A son of man as a picture of the kingdom of heaven and the universe [1] In the preceding disclosure we have put a strong image before everyone's eyes, according to which anyone can easily relate the external phenomena to the inner foundation. But since this field is very large, and the phenomena on it innumerable, man never has too much of a right image to seek the right advice in every situation of his apparent existence. And so we will move on to another, though simple, but more meaningful, and more general picture to illuminate our cause. [2] What could be simpler than a harmless, poor human child? This has two moving feet, then a body full of guts; it has two movable arms and above it a movable head on a neck. There are two ears on the head that are always the same, and one hears the same thing as the other. So it also has two eyes that have their fixed point of view in mind and can not be brought closer to each other, though they are capable of movement. With these two eyes every single thing can be looked at for itself. In the middle of the eyes sits the nose with two nostrils. It breathes in the air of life and lets the impurity of the head flow away. So it also has a mouth, the lower part of which is independently mobile. In the same case, it has immobile teeth, but a more mobile tongue. The rest of the body consists of skin, flesh, blood, nerves, fibers, veins and bones, in which marrow is found. - See, that's the picture of our child. [3] Who knows what is behind this very simple appearance? Who sees a whole heaven in it? Who the whole infinite universe? [4] Who seeks in this simple picture the conflict of all creation, both in the spiritual and the natural spheres? [5] Would somebody not want to say, in the child this is hardly obvious; but if we let it become a man, perhaps there will much be found in his thoughts and actions, from which one can consequently see that man is at least an integral part of creation. [6] But I say: This is not necessary; the child alone is enough. His two simple feet testify to my Paternal loving care expressed in the ten simple commandments known to you. The feet are provided with then toes, for this purpose and also for the sake of support and retention. [7] In the natural sphere, however, they present the planetary system, which is also the lowest support of a solar system. Yes, the planetary system, like its feet, through their movement, pushes the great main body of the sun into its great main movement. [8] From this very brief account, you can see that even in the feet of the child the whole caring nature of a spiritual kind, like the whole planetary nature of a natural kind, is present. [9] The body rests on its feet as the main workshop of life. Who does not immediately see in this spiritual sphere the essence of the invigorating love from Me? And who does not soon see in the body, the sun, which is the invigorating body of the whole planetary system? [10] In the body, the heart is the fundamental seat of life and the clearest picture of love. This love is constantly active and nourishes all parts of the body. [11] Right next to this love, is the stomach. This is the hospitable kitchen, in which the heat of the love cooks the food by its fire and then, truly wonderfully prepared, leads it into all parts. [12] The lungs are like a second stomach, a second kitchen, through which essential food is added to the food prepared in the first kitchen, so that the food of the first kitchen comes alive and is suitable for the support of life. [13] How glorious is the image of these two kitchens, in the midst of which the active heart rules, how the spiritual intervenes in the natural, in order to spiritualize it, and thus to bring it to a higher purpose. And all of this happens through the ever-active mediation of the heart, this most faithful image of love! [14] Who can misunderstand My own love-power here, as I also always take the lost, cook it in the great kitchen of natural creation, and then revive it by the breath of My grace and mercy, from the second great kitchen, which is heaven , and is equal to the lungs in man. [15] Every breath can tell every human how I constantly influences life from the heavens, so that life consists therein that through this influx, I always strive to transform death into life. [16] Anyone who is able to think only somewhat clearly for himself, will certainly not find this wonderful analogy without light. - Let's go further. [17] On both sides of the body are two hands. These represent spiritually the working love, which can move freely in wide spaces everywhere and constantly works and creates. [18] The hands are therefore represent My hands of free-acting, unbound power, which, however, does not wave beyond the definite eternal basic order, for every hand also carries the fingers as outermost extensions, whose number equals the extensions of the feet. Only the legs of the feet are bound to the same directed order, while the extensions on the hands signify free activity in this order. [19] So, for example, a human being not born again in the spirit, is equal to the bound order of the feet and a born-again man, equal to the free order of the hands. [20] Whoever is able to think, will here again find the corresponding truth; especially when he is still looking at the natural sun, just as in the outward flow of its rays she visibly reveals her open, freely active hands. [21] Now we still have the head, a fixed part above the body, which in itself in a rounded form, represents a complete man in his spiritual sphere. The ears are the feet on which he goes. The eyes are his arms, with which he can reach far. The nose is the lungs; the mouth is the stomach. In him is like the heart, the tongue, which helps to process both the material and the spiritual food; the material by pushing under the crushing teeth and then by swallowing down. That is their material employment. But the tongue also gives the voice an intelligible, articulated sound, and it is it, that transforms the inner thoughts into intelligible words. [22] The inner marrow of the head represents the whole entrails of man or his refined and spiritualized life. [23] And so man in his totality, in his very simple, contemplative form, leads man through all his three stages: in his feet the bound naturalness, in his body the spiritual sphere which still has to work and fight with various things and in the head, its heavenly sphere, where man stands in and of himself in a fixed, unchangeable condition, but is thus far wider in his sphere of influence, just as the constituents of the head of the natural man extends infinitely beyond the components of the human body. [24] Well, that's a very simple but clear picture. This image of the external appearance contains the whole of heaven, the whole of the spiritual world subordinated to heaven, and thus also the whole of the natural world, which is subordinate to heaven and the spirit world, in all its details. [25] I think that if you look at this picture, especially in the simplicity of a harmless child, you will be able to find each other with ease in this appearance, and be able to just as easily find its foundation. And so we have enough pictures; and there is nothing left for us to do but to add a few "Explanation of Scriptures"* to this whole work, as it is to be usefully read and handled accordingly. * The book “Explanation of Scriptures” has been published as a separate work (translator) END OF SPIRITUAL SUN vol 2 _______________________ Table of Contents CHAPTER 67 Practical guidance on self-development of children in children's homes 113 CHAPTER 68 Visual instruction in graduated departments in the children's kingdom 115 CHAPTER 69 Heavenly schoolhouse for geography and world history in the kingdom of children 117 CHAPTER 70 Instruction on the nature and origin of the earth in the kingdom of children 118 CHAPTER 71 About the school of life in the kingdom of the children 120 CHAPTER 72 Classroom of the creational history of men in the kingdom of children 122 CHAPTER 73 The first commandment in the first classroom - explanation 124 CHAPTER 74 How should one seek God? 125 CHAPTER 75 Longing for God as an important testimony to His existence 127 CHAPTER 76 Instructions on the second and third commandments in the second and third halls 129 CHAPTER 77 The fourth commandment in the fourth room (in the spiritual sense) 131 CHAPTER 78 The fifth commandment in the fifth hall - spiritually explained 132 CHAPTER 79 The sixth commandment in the sixth room - What is unchastity? 133 CHAPTER 80 About two kinds of love 134 CHAPTER 81 What is fornication? 136 CHAPTER 82 The seventh commandment in the seventh classroom of the children's kingdom 137 CHAPTER 83 What does 'steal' mean? 139 CHAPTER 84 Comments on social issues 140 CHAPTER 85 The Eighth commandment in the eighth hall - The material shell as a means to lie 141 CHAPTER 86 What is false testimony? 143 CHAPTER 87 Ninth hall - ninth commandment 144 CHAPTER 88 Reflections on the ninth commandment 146 CHAPTER 89 The inner sense of the ninth commandment 149 CHAPTER 90 Blessings of wise limitation 150 CHAPTER 91 Sin against the Divine order of the ninth commandment 151 CHAPTER 92 Usury, the most damnable before God 152 CHAPTER 93 The tenth commandment in the tenth hall in the kingdom of the children 153 CHAPTER 94 Who is the 'you' in the tenth commandment? 155 CHAPTER 95 Examples of wrong views of the tenth commandment 156 CHAPTER 96 Reason for concealment of the actual meaning of the tenth commandment 157 CHAPTER 97 The inner, self-evident meaning of the tenth commandment 159 CHAPTER 98 The Eleventh Commandment in the Eleventh Hall - The Love unto God 161 CHAPTER 99 Love of God as the primordial material of all creatures 163 CHAPTER 100 What does it mean to love God above all else? 164 CHAPTER 101 What is the love unto God? 166 CHAPTER 102 How to love God above all else 168 CHAPTER 103 The Twelfth commandment in the twelfth hall - Love unto the neighbor 169 CHAPTER 104 What is true love unto the neighbor? 171 CHAPTER 105 Practical instruction about charity of the students in the hereafter 173 CHAPTER 106 Essence and consequences of vice 174 CHAPTER 107 In the second hell 176 CHAPTER 108 Nothing is destructible in the whole of creation 177 CHAPTER 109 Images from the first and the second Hell 178 CHAPTER 110 Every person carries Heaven and Hell in himself according to his personality 179 CHAPTER 111 Body, spirit, principle of life 181 CHAPTER 112 Earthly images of the lowest Hell 182 CHAPTER 113 Another image of the lowest Hell 183 CHAPTER 114 Lust for power and vanity – the seeds of Hell 184 CHAPTER 115 Fruits ripe for Hell 185 CHAPTER 116 In the spiritual condition all secrets come to light 186 CHAPTER 117 Heaven and Hell – Polarities in man 188 CHAPTER 118 Heavenly and hellish principles 189 CHAPTER 119 The spirit as the creator of his own world 190 CHAPTER 120 Further development of the students in the beyond. The Middle Kingdom (Hades) 191 CHAPTER 121 Every life has certain ways determined by Jesus 193 CHAPTER 122 Continued education of the students through the planets and the seven spheres of the sun, to their heavenly destination 194 CHAPTER 123 Review of the ten viewed spirit spheres 195 CHAPTER 124 Every human being carries a different grain-seed for the development of the spiritual world 196 CHAPTER 125 The kingdom of heaven is like the present time 197 CHAPTER 126 A tree as an example of the nature of the spirit kingdom 199 CHAPTER 127 A son of man as a picture of the kingdom of heaven and the universe 200

[1] SAY I: “Then hearken to Me! Behold, all such immature people mostly are put on the sun just seen by you, and receive all necessary life-instruction in those extensive schools. Thus also deceased little children are instructed in the central equatorial region and reared there – but mainly on the spiritual part of the sun.[2] Upon the sun viewed by you, unripe souls receive another body, but without birth, and this then, together with the soul becomes spiritual and can then go over to the purely spiritual. How such souls are transferred there and by who you have witnessed with your own journey to the first sun. (GGJ Book 4, chap. 82)

See also 'The Spiritual Sun, vol. 2 - The Kingdom of children on the Spiritual Sun